How the West is winning
opinion.telegraph.co.uk
Those who anathematise America rejoiced when the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, symbols of its economic and military might, were struck by terrorists two years ago today.
In fact, the damage done greatly exceeded their hopes. The collapse of the Twin Towers, that most awful of images, strengthened their belief that they had fatally wounded a decadent nation that for years had humiliated the Islamic world.
"God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America," was the message of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qa'eda.
Yet, two years on, the Great Satan, far from collapsing, has shown extraordinary courage and determination in countering this apocalyptic threat. Those qualities were immediately apparent in the tackling of the terrorists in the third of the hijacked planes.
They were repeatedly demonstrated by the firemen who rushed to rescue the occupants of the blazing towers. And, once the dust from their fall had settled, America showed its global power of retaliation. Within a month, it had invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban, bin Laden's sponsors, were driven from power and al-Qa'eda's operations disrupted.
That initial strike was followed this March by the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, an event that would have been inconceivable without the attack on the Twin Towers. Al-Qa'eda warned the Americans that "the storm of planes" would not abate.
In fact, the territory of the United States has been spared further atrocities while it has taken the fight to the heart of the enemy, destroying two regimes that, in their different ways, were implacably opposed to the West.
To derive satisfaction from this achievement is not to be complacent. It is the opposite of complacency that has prevented the terrorists from realising their hideous designs on the West.
September 11 acted as a wake-up call for a country where security was far too lax, despite a previous attack on the World Trade Centre and the carnage wrought by the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It galvanised America and its allies into strengthening anti-terrorist laws, and using them to arrest suspects, ban radical groups and curb their ability to raise money.
The fact that no Western country has suffered a major terrorist attack for the past two years points to the effectiveness of this campaign. The effete enemy has not been engulfed in a sea of righteous fire. Instead, it has forced Islamic radicals on to the defensive.
Saudi Arabia may have got rid of American troops, one of bin Laden's objectives, but it has also forfeited American trust. Syria has lost whatever influence it had over the attempts to bring peace to the Middle East.
Iran is under pressure from both Washington and the European Union over its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. And the much-touted "Arab street" has remained remarkably quiet in the face of these reverses.
The war against terror, as George W Bush reminded us in his broadcast this week, will require staying power. The killing of 202 people, most of them Australian tourists, in Bali last October was a powerful antidote to complacency. The same is true of the bombing in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf last month.
Yet the Indonesians have sentenced two people to death under an anti-terror law passed after Bali; and a poll conducted in August by the American Enterprise magazine found that seven out of 10 Iraqis were optimistic about the future.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict offers no such encouragements. The cycle of bombing and assassination seems unstoppable. Yesterday's funerals of a doctor and his daughter murdered by the Jerusalem suicide bomber on Tuesday, with her fiancé placing a ring on her shrouded corpse, once again brought home the horror of terrorism.
Two years after September 11, it remains a potent and widespread scourge. But its most spectacular manifestation, rather than causing demoralisation, has opened the world's eyes to the true nature of the threat. |
