On April 30, 2012, Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser made a bold prediction: It was possible to envision a world in which al Qaeda’s central leadership would “no longer [be] relevant” to the United States and the organization itself would be eliminated. “If the decade before 9/11 was the time of al Qaeda’s rise, and the decade after 9/11 was the time of its decline, then I believe this decade will be the one that sees its demise,” boasted John Brennan.
This wasn’t an analytical assessment. It was a political claim, coming just six months before the 2012 election, at the beginning of the Obama administration’s coordinated public relations campaign to portray al Qaeda as “on the run.” Like his boss, Brennan was reflexively dismissive of the jihadists’ desire to capture territory and build a radical Islamic state. In a June 29, 2011, speech, Brennan had dismissed “al Qaeda’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate” as “absurd,” a “feckless delusion.”
Brennan went on to become Obama’s CIA director. ISIS went on to capture large chunks of Syria and Iraq and declare itself a global caliphate. And al Qaeda went on to recruit thousands of jihadists, building new guerrilla armies in South Asia and Syria, as well as in hotspots throughout North and West Africa. These forces joined existing al Qaeda branches in Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere, all of which grew. Al Qaeda’s men have conducted hundreds of attacks, while seizing more territory than the group ever possessed before. ISIS, an outgrowth of al Qaeda in Iraq, “maintains the intent and capability to direct, enable, assist, and inspire transnational attacks,” according to recent testimony from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. “ISIS continues to pose an active terrorist threat to the United States and its allies because of its ideological appeal, media presence, control of territory in Iraq and Syria, its branches and networks in other countries, and its proven ability to direct and inspire attacks against a wide range of targets around the world.”
Neither al Qaeda nor the modern jihadism it pioneered will be gone anytime soon—as the brutal attack in Manchester, England, reminded us this past week and as the excellent cover story by Thomas Joscelyn makes clear. But efforts to downplay jihadist terror came to an end on the final day of the Obama administration.
Donald Trump made clear in his speech May 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that he recognizes the threats posed by radical Islam and that he is not reluctant to speak about those threats in a direct and forceful way. These are important and welcome changes. But they won’t win the 9/11 wars.
What was true under George W. Bush remained true under Barack Obama, and what was true under Barack Obama remains true under Donald Trump: We cannot prevail in this long war without strong, resolute American leadership.
Can Donald Trump provide it? We’d like to believe so, and Trump has among his many national security advisers some of the finest minds on the subject. There are nonetheless many reasons to temper expectations.
The biggest question is the president himself. Trump is an instinctive non-interventionist and has been for decades. And yet he has said consistently that he will defeat ISIS, al Qaeda, and other jihadists. This tension will have to be resolved one way or the other: The 9/11 wars cannot be won without the United States playing the dominant role, which will require a heavy lift from the U.S. military, intelligence professionals, and diplomats.
Take Libya. On April 20, Trump hosted Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni at the White House. After their meeting, a reporter asked Gentiloni what kind of help he expected from the Trump administration in efforts to stabilize Libya and asked Trump if he saw a U.S. role in helping to provide that stability. Gentiloni expressed gratitude for U.S. assistance in the struggle to keep post-Qaddafi Libya from turning into a safe haven for ISIS and other jihadists. “We need a stable and unified Libya,” he said. “The U.S. role in this is very critical.”
Trump contradicted Gentiloni one second later:
In the same breath, then, the president says the United States has no role in Libya but will play the primary role in ridding the world of ISIS, including in Libya.
Although ISIS has lost ground, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s loyalists continue to operate in Libya. As does Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its more covert network. Authorities in the United Kingdom believe that Salman Abedi, the terrorist bomber in Manchester, may have traveled to Libya for training. Abedi’s brother and father were arrested there. In January, the United States bombed two training camps in Libya thought to be tied to the Islamic State’s “external plotters”—operatives targeting Europe and beyond.
Ridding Libya of ISIS will require more of this, not less. Ridding the world of ISIS, al Qaeda, and other jihadists—even just diminishing the threat they present—will require a concerted, global effort led by the United States.
The moral clarity Trump has provided helps define the challenge ahead. It doesn’t win the war.
