Over the last seven years, any proposals to adjust U.S. tactics in this "war on terror" were met, for the most part, with ridicule. The Bush Administration and Republican Congress argued that proponents of new strategies clearly didn't understand the issues, were understating the threat or, just plain delusional. Various alternatives in mitigating the terrorist threat were raised, such as Middle East policy reviews, or less emphasis on military tactics and more on policing and intelligence, Those suggestions were, for the most part, greeted with derision.
It's a testament, I suppose, to the Bush Administration's power to influence that they could, despite demonstrating minimal results with their stategies, still control the debate. The Bush White House developed a strategy to invade a country that had no al Qaeda presence and turned it into a hot bed of jihadism. Despite over 4,000 American lives, tens of thousands wounded and a couple trillion dollars spent, terrorism attacks throughout the world rose year after year. Some track record.
So, the news today that the election of Barack Obama has al Qaeda in some kind of defensive panic is like a dream come true.
The
torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts now believe
is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign against a
president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda's skin. The
departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a polarizing American
leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.
With
Obama, al-Qaeda faces an entirely new challenge, experts say: a U.S.
president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to close the military
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and who polls show is well liked
throughout the Muslim world.
...the change in Washington appears to have rattled al-Qaeda's leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same.
The
Post article notes as President Obama began this last week to dismantle
controversial Bush Administration policy the al Qaeda verbal attacks on
the President "have become sharper, more frequent and more clearly aimed at Muslim audiences".
It's gratifying that something so simple as electing a new American president with a more grounded view of the Middle East could throw al Qaeda into a panic and worried about whether they can continue to recruit Muslims to their murderous cause.
How cool is that?
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