Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Paris later this week, but that the administration could have been so tone deaf in missing a this weekend’s chance to highlight its concerns over an issue critical to Europe and America’s own security– is a stunning oversight. It suggests an inability to see the Paris attacks in their proper perspectivealthough doing so is admittedly no easy matter only days afterward.
As Washington and others process those events, there are takeaways that should guide their thinking in the period ahead. They include:
Don’t panic
The jihadis aren’t taking over the world. After 9/11, many had an overriding sense that more successful attacks would follow. They didn’t. In fact both in Europe and the U.S., it’s stunning how few successful attacks directed by foreign terrorist organizations there have been (not one since 2005 in Europe; and not one since 9/11 in the U.S.)
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Whatever else we try to achieve in this broken, angry, and dysfunctional region, our overriding goal must be to prevent attacks on the U.S. and help our allies do the same. What happened in Paris is a tragic reminder of how challenging this will be.
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