Every time a horrendous terrorist attack victimizes innocent victims, we wring our hands and promise to increase security and take other necessary preventive measures. But we fail to recognize how friends and allies play such an important role in encouraging, incentivizing, and inciting terrorism.

If we are to have any chance of reducing terrorism, we must get to its root cause. It is not poverty, disenfranchisement, despair, or any of the other excuses offered to explain, if not to justify, terrorism as an act of desperation. It is anything but.