Al Qa'ida on the Ropes or Reborn?

Two weeks ago, separate from his piece declaring al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula on the ropes, Peter Bergen wrote that although the Benghazi consulate attack and the Boston Marathon bombing "were victories for 'Binladenism,' the ideological movement that al Qaeda has spawned," al Qaeda itself "is going the way of the VHS tape." Citing the lack of a successful attack in the West since the London underground bombings in July 2005 and the attrition of al-Qa'ida core's leadership due to kinetic CT operations, "Al Qaeda 'Central,' . . . remains on life support."

On Friday Bruce Reidel argued that the jailbreaks in Iraq and the massive influx of jihadists into Syria (and possibly Lebanon) indicates al-Qa'ida's influence is on the rise. Reidel argues that "Syria has become what Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Iraq were to earlier generations of jihadists: the epicenter of global jihad," and Ibrahim Talib of the Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus says there are more than 130,000 foreign jihadists currently fighting in Syria. Even if this number is questionable, if it is even half that, the comparison to Afghanistan in the 1980s and what emerged from that war is sobering. (Reidel also makes an excellent point that the regeneration of al-Qa'ida in Iraq in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal demonstrates the significant danger of the "zero option" the Obama administration has floated for post-2014 Afghanistan).

So who is correct, Bergen or Reidel? Well, both, but Reidel's argument is more pertinent. Whereas Bergen is correct that the al-Qa'ida leadership as it existed on September 2010 has been decimated, it would be dangerous to conclude the War on Terror is over as well. (Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard, citing Thomas Jocelyn, suggests the attempt to the conflate the two is a brazenly political move by the Obama administration, but I'll let others decide for themselves the merit of that argument).

Bergen is correct that al-Qa'ida's affiliates haven't struck the west, but the key word may be YET. The network that Bergen calls al-Qa'ida was just a former bunch of ex-jihadists who'd fought in Afghanistan making anti-American declarations in 1998 until they launched the African embassy bombings. This isn't to say it is inevitable that these affiliates will  try to attack the U.S. homeland, only that once upon a time terrorism experts didn't belive al-Qa'ida Core could/would attack us and consequently underrated the organization as a threat with tragic consequences.

If Reidel is correct, even if by some miracle Syria sorts itself out in a way not wholly damaging to U.S. strategic interests, there will be a massive number of combat hardened young men who've sworn loyalty to al-Qa'ida to consider. Again, this isn't to say that direct military intervention is the answer. I think Jocelyn is correct when he notes: "The right course for combating al Qaeda’s aggression, including the appropriate uses of American military force, should be a matter of debate." However, triumphalism about the defeat of al-Qa'ida Core could blunt such a debate and risk a return to a pre-9/11 complacency.