If terrorism is a form of theater where you want a lot of people watching, no event in human history was likely ever seen by a larger global audience than the 9/11 attacks.
At the time, there was much discussion about how 9/11 was like the attack on Pearl Harbor. They were indeed similar since they were both surprise attacks that drew America into significant wars.
But they were also similar in another sense. Pearl Harbor was a great tactical success for Imperial Japan, but it led to great strategic failure: Within four years of Pearl Harbor the Japanese empire lay in ruins, utterly defeated.
Similarly, 9/11 was a great tactical success for al Qaeda, but it also turned out be a great strategic failure for Osama bin Laden.
–
Instead, all too often violence becomes an end in itself for the terrorist organization, which then loses any legitimacy that it might have once had and is eventually wiped out by military or police action. That is the position that ISIS now finds itself in with its killing of the Jordanian pilot.
Read CNNOpinion’s new Flipboard magazine.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.
