Ask the Author: Marc Sageman

If so many young, would-be terrorists are motivated to fight by the U.S. presence in Iraq, is a U.S. withdrawal enough to ease their anger? How would American troops leaving Iraq change the equation?

Watching images of Americans killing Muslims inflames Muslim moral outrage worldwide. Such images need to be eliminated through having a much smaller footprint in Iraq. Just like American troops in Japan, it is not the presence of troops per se that is causing this outrage, but the perceived moral violations they cause. So, in Japan, each case of U.S. military personnel accused of raping young Japanese women triggers large demonstrations calling for withdrawal of the U.S. presence there. Its a similar process for Iraq, but those images are broadcasted to the Muslim world through satellite channels, fueling Muslims anger everywhere. Eradicating such images will diminish this sense of outrage and diminish the desire of Muslims to strike back against the United States.

The examples of young terrorists you cite in your article were mostly living in the West, places like Canada and Western Europe. Is that where we should look for the next attack to come fromnot, say, Waziristan in Pakistan or Iraq?

The danger comes from the West. And like with the attacks of September 11, the threat to the continental United States comes from Europe. Muslims who are living in the West would be able to settle and operate in the United States. The 15 Saudi perpetrators involved in the September 11 plot had to be closely hand-held by the leaders of the plot, who had all lived extensively in the West. People from Waziristan or Iraq would have trouble operating in the United States undetected.

I believe the military is certainly better equipped and trained to capture or kill terrorists than law enforcement. Doesnt demilitarizing the struggle against terrorism, as you suggest, amount to pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and letting the terrorists win? How can law enforcement be nearly as effective?

This is a common misconception. Terrorism is never a military problem. People confuse it with an insurgency or even a civil war because the atrocities committed in these conflicts employ terrorist tactics. Terrorists in the West hide in the local population. This is a law enforcement problem because the police know the community, whereas the military rarely does. On the other hand, when terrorists are able to congregate in sanctuaries, as they did in Afghanistan before late 2001, then the destruction of these sanctuaries is a military mission. The use of military force lumps all our potential enemies together and unifies them needlessly. The appropriate military mission should be limited to sanctuary denial.

You write that young people often find violent images online that lead them to want to commit terrorist acts. What key images, phrases, and motifs are most often aimed at these young people to get them to join these new terrorist networks? And which of these are the most effective?

What triggers moral outrage among Muslims, as it would for any other person, is the image of a moral violation against a person with whom they empathize. These images are projected by the media, like Al Jazeera. They are part of reporting of events, and as such they are not directed at people. They are just the news. The rage they cause helps fuel the desire to get back at the violators on the screen.

However, al Qaeda propagandists project other images that try to mobilize young men to join the movement. These images are about the glory of being a jihadist. These are images of the rigors of training, the rituals of jihadists praising their fight, and especially the images of successful bombing attempts. Young men are chasing fantasies of glory and thrill, and these al Qaeda images play to these desires.

Theres no doubt that terrorists use the Internet to communicate with one another. You call radical Web forums the invisible hand organizing terrorist activities today. But given the nature of the Internet, what can possibly be done to monitor and stop such communications?

This is an excellent question that has implications far beyond the issue of terrorism. Online communication is becoming a foundation for our society. Whatever is done in influencing such communication must be a societal decision based on a broad debate. I would not want the government to decide unilaterally what should be done. I would not rush into monitoring or eliminating even distasteful communication without a healthy social debate about them.

Studies by scholars such as Alan Krueger, Robert Pape, and yourself have shown definitively over the years that poverty, lack of education, and religious fanaticism do not make a terrorist. So, why do these popular explanations live on?

The persistence of prejudices, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, has always fascinated social scientists, who have made some counterintuitive discoveries in their research. This is not an easy question to answer in a few paragraphs. Let me instead refer you to the wonderful new book by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007).

Why have we not seen terrorists inside the United States use the Internet to band together and commit attacks here? Surely, if it is so easy to link up, some small attack would have occurred in the most connected society on the planet?

This is another excellent question. So far, the belief in the American dream and the melting pot, as well as fair opportunities in the labor market, have protected the continental United States against terrorist attacks because they undermine the terrorist frame that the United States is at war against its own Muslim communities. That helps explain the relative absence of physical terrorist networks within this country. The mobilization of very few young people into becoming a small terrorist group has been hampered by this absence of networks that could encourage people into performing terrorist acts. As interactions of terrorist wannabes have gradually shifted to the Internet, this protection is disappearing. Americans can now be linked to online buddies located abroad who might inspire and encourage them to do something here. We are starting to see this in action. Two people were arrested in Georgia two years ago in connection to other plots abroad. All the perpetrators were connected via the same chatroom. I do think that the scenario described in the question may become an increasing danger in the United States in the future.

You argue that al Qaeda Central poses less of a threat today than at any time since the attacks of September 11. But arent remnants of al Qaeda regaining strength in Pakistans North-West Frontier Province, and dont they pose an increasing threat to the government in Islamabad, as well as to Americans?

In the past three years, because of decreasing Pakistani military pressure in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (not the North-West Frontier Province, as suggested in the question), some al Qaeda leaders have been able to regroup. They definitely try to plot against the West and the United States, but they have been unable to project their capability outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. There has been no successful al Qaeda plot in the West in almost three years. People connected to al Qaeda, but not al Qaeda memberswe tend to lump everyone together, which is a mistake for it unifies them against uscertainly are a threat to the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto illustrates. But unlike [in] the years prior to September 11, al Qaeda no longer seems to have the luxury of coordinating large transnational attacks without being detected. The difference has been the international communitys success in containing the threat in the past six years. There is no doubt that the international community is much better prepared now than it once was. Having said this, as long as al Qaeda leaders exist, there is still a threat that cannot be ignored. These professional terrorists must be eliminated.

If U.S. actions are exactly what will help the terrorist movement flourish, as you argue in your article, are you suggesting that less action is really more effective? You write, This need not be a long war, unless American policy makes it so. How can the United States, in good conscience, ignore the most pressing security threat facing it today?

The article does not argue for lack of action or ignorance of the terrorist threat. I am sorry if I have not made this clear. The problem is that American policy is directed against the first two waves of this threat, and it has had amazing success against them. However, this policy is misguided against this new third wave, and even encourages it. The United States is fighting the last war. It needs to counter this threat in a very different, more appropriate way.

Is Europe really more at risk of homegrown terrorism than the United States? And if the latest threat of terrorism is largely homegrown, does it follow that the United States is, in a sense, relatively safe from attack?

Yes, thats exactly right. In probability terms, the United States faces about a sixth of the chance that some of these terrorists will attack it, as compared to Europe. But no one is absolutely safe. It depends where one draws the line.

Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer, is author of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).