Terror In the United States

Let me leapfrog on Abu Kais's thoughts on the terror threat in the United States with a nifty graphic, from the always handy Foreign Policy blog. Abu Kais reports on a US National Intelligence report stating that Hizbullah has sleeper cells in the United States. While it does not surprise me to learn that Hizbullah has its sympathizers in America, I would be shocked if Hizbullah was so stupid as to actually carry out terrorist attacks on US soil. For the game to reach that state, America would probably have to be engaged directly in a Lebanese ground war.

When it comes to terror in the United States, more interesting is the claim by the Bush Administration and conservative intelligentsia that the President has prevented attacks on American soil after 9/11. This graph lends credence to this claim -- though the price has been an explosion, so to speak, of terror attacks primarily in the Middle East. Most of those attacks are related to the continuing violence in Iraq.

The point is that terrorists are currently concerned mainly with fighting America's Middle Eastern allies abroad. September 11th did not mark the beginning of a wave of terror on the United States directly, but a sustained attack on United States interests, allies, and -- yes-- principles abroad. Even if we exclude the Middle East, terror attacks worldwide rose after September 11th: in 2001, there were 1,223 attacks outside of the Middle East; in 2006, there were 2,113.

After its allies have been defeated or emasculated, it is logical to think that America's enemies would begin to attack America directly. But let's hope it never comes to that.