Sana'a, Yemen -- The al-Qaeda threats have actually bedeviled president Bush for the five years since the September 11 attacks. President George W. Bush now has no opportunity to bring it to an end.
This is not in the interests of Americans, Europeans, and the US closet allies of Arab regimes in the Middle East that prefer peace to war. From the perspective of the United States, this global war has become a strategic imperative.
A new counterterrorism strategy released eight days ago by the White House believed in President Bush's "freedom agenda" of promoting democracy as the leading long-term weapon against the evolving nature of the terrorist threats.
While the fact on the ground is that many Arabs and Muslims are now infidels of Bush's "freedom agenda" that are currently applying in Iraq, they do no longer believe in the US-style democratic project in the Middle East; I'm not talking about dictatorial Arab regimes, but major hungry people in the Arab and Muslim world.
Many Arabs know the fact that the United States support of its Arab 'friendly' regimes prevented spreading real democracy to the Islamic world.
The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism in its new counterterrorism strategy described al-Qaeda as a significantly degraded organization, but outlines potent threats from smaller networks and individuals motivated by al-Qaeda ideology. "Oh great!"
It's maybe true that al-Qaeda and jihadist movements have lost secure shelters and the open battle fronts. This situation, according to Arabic-language al-Qaeda's strategy released through jihadist web sites, led al-Qaeda to build self-controlled small cells - in nearly most countries, including the United States and Britain � deeply believing in al-Qaeda idea of the holy war against the political, economic and military power of America and its Western and Arab allies.
The counterterrorism strategy came from the fact that Bush administration believes in a global vital organization of al-Qaeda that its organizations rang from a fully functioning state such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq and Jordan to small groups of individuals in British and American cities.
In addition, the US administration in its new strategy admitted the bitter fact that al-Qaeda was no longer a smaller group fighting a losing battle with that US-led coalition on Pakistani-Afghanistan borders; it's widely dispersed Islamic youths who are often isolated and linked by little more than the Internet from Afghan capital Kabul into Washington, New York and London.
The al-Qaeda tendency to be formed as smaller networks and individuals has made it a striking force in all over the world; the White House recognized this fact probably due to all terrorist attacks have been carried out by smaller networks whether in the September 11 attacks or London bombings.
After September 11, the Arab public became sympathizers to those al-Qaeda-related terrorists, describing them as an opposition group against Israel and the presence of US military bases in the Middle East.
The US strategy failed to find out the next step for al-Qaeda attacks that will be in Israel and Israeli interests within its friendly countries. According to al-Qaeda's strategy, its attacks will be different than assaults of Palestinian jihadist movements and Hamas... it will be an anther September 11, 2001.
Absolutely, the five years since September 11 attacks on American soil have proven the previous counterterrorism strategies wrong. Only the coming days will also prove this new counterterrorism strategy as additional Bush's grave blunder.
The bad managing of the US war on terrorism succeeded not only in inflaming anti-U.S. opinion throughout the Islamic world, including, significantly, the US allies in Europe, according to most regional experts in Washington, but also in weakening the pro-Western Islamist-dominated governments � notably Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan � that, as before 9/11, remain Washington's only allies in the region.
Many Muslims are now laughing at Bush's "freedom agenda" of promoting Palestinian democracy that led Hamas government under the siege! Here is al-Qaeda has won in its propaganda against the unfair democracy and freedom in the Arab public that led them not to believe any future US project for the region.
I think it's easy for everyone loves peace to conclude that if the United States really wants to improve its image in the Middle East, it must find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a first step, and to stabilize Iraq after the war.
