Phares: Today's Jihadism uses history and theology as roots for their mobilization and action, but the Jihadists have developed plans as of the 1980s and 1990s which have been taking shape in the Middle East and within the West before and after 9/11.
The West was misled by its own elites in reading and understanding the threat. Hence, I argue in my book Future Jihad, that they have at least one decade lead ahead of the West, if not more.
On 9/11, most Americans didn't understand that they were attacked in a War waged against them as of the 1990s. Since 2001, the Government has been attempting to catch up with the Jihadist penetration of the country, albeit with limited successes. The infiltration of the system is deep and wide for any federal government to address without a full fledge public awareness. And this is where the battle is today: the ability of Americans to understand the threat and to support policies that can win the conflict.
You can see clearly that the Jihadists have been able to affect this understanding through their past and current successful campaigns to mollify the national analysis in America. As for Europe, the battle is much harsher and the stakes are much higher: European governments are under tremendous pressures by the oil producing regimes in the Arab and Muslim world on the one hand and a European network of Jihadist cadres.
In short, today's Jihadism has been planned and waged as of the 1990s at the least. Tomorrow's "Jihad" though, is been planned and launched today. The level of infiltration by al Qaeda and the neo-Wahabis within US and Western systems, for example, will be seen years from now.
The 9/11 design will be topped and bypassed by today's Jihadi strategic planners. I invite readers and analysts to look hard at the cases of terror arrests within the West, but also in the greater Middle East. Those planning strikes of aggression in the US, Canada, the UK and other countries in Europe, are what we call "home-grown," but with an ideology which is Jihadi in nature.
Future Jihadism will be native and lethal, if not addressed quickly by the international society in general and America's leadership in particular. Future terrorists will be citizens, protected by laws, and attempting to create domestic crisis, while the Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah of the world were "aliens" who had been simply successful in infiltrating the security system.
FP: What are some of the predictions you made that have come true?
Phares: Let me mention a few:
[1] Penetration of the system: Jihadists will be trying to penetrate the U.S. system: Multiple cases have shown that they have attempted to infiltrate the U.S. military, intelligence and other agencies. In the chapter "Mutant Jihad," I predicted the rise of the so-called second generation (homegrown) Jihadists in America and the West. The capture of these cells have shown that most members were citizens, born in the country and speaking the language, etc.
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