A stronger al-Qaida

A new terrorist threat appraisal discussed at the White House yesterday concludes al-Qaida -- its top leaders continuing to shelter in safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border -- has rebuilt its operating capability to levels not seen since the days before the murderous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, The Associated Press reports.

John Kringen, who heads the CIA's analysis directorate, echoed these concerns during testimony and in conversations with reporters following a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington on Wednesday.

"They seem to be fairly well-settled into the safe haven and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan," Mr. Kringen testified. "We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications. We see that activity rising."

This is not terribly surprising. There is much truth in the old doctrine, "That which does not destroy me makes me stronger." Fail to wipe out an infection by using too little antibiotic, and a more resistant strain can return and flourish.

Who is now "winning" this struggle depends on how we choose to define "victory." If al-Qaida hopes to overthrow the military and economic power of the West, as well as the moral power that our culture of freedom and opportunity demonstrates by continuing to draw immigrants from the all over the Muslim world, then they are failing, and will continue to fail -- no matter how many videos they release of shouting men still afraid to show their faces, running through obstacle courses and learning to fire sheet-metal weapons that are the product of Western technology.

If their goal is to convert the West to Islam by force, this bunch failed at Tours in 732, and have been retreating into irrelevance and strategic impotence ever since.

On the other hand, if Osama bin Laden and his gang can convince many who are frustrated by the very impotence of the Arab states that they win a new "victory" every month that they manage to thumb their noses at America and still survive, they set themselves a far lower bar.

Thursday's intelligence analysis does not fall into a political vacuum. Many will leap on this estimate as evidence the Bush administration has failed in its duty to destroy al-Qaida. Others will go further, saying President Bush has made the problem worse by exposing American troops to a death by inches in the occupation of Iraq -- facilitating al-Qaida recruitment by creating the impression that America is a helpless giant, like Gulliver tied down on the beach by the threads of the Lilliputians.

Both complaints have some merit. But the president is not being facetious when he asks critics to offer a better plan.

What would be better? Many on the left secretly long to simply ask bin Laden what he wants -- what it would take for him to let us alone. But the problem with paying off a blackmailer is that he always comes back with new demands.

Alternatively, many on the right can't understand why we continue to "tie the hands" of our troops in Iraq. Simply announce to the neighborhood where the latest roadside explosive has claimed an American life -- this line of argument advises -- that we want the culprits delivered in 12 hours or there will be adverse consequences. When the culprits are not delivered, pull our troops back 10 miles or so and turn that neighborhood to rubble. When the next IED claims an American life, somewhere up the road, return to step one and repeat.

Such a path of vengeance, however, would likely corrode our own souls long before it ran out of potential adversaries.

Between the two extremes lies the imperfect but measured course of President Bush, who warned from the start that this struggle would test America's historically short patience -- and that our victories, when they come, may not always be the stuff of triumphant headlines.

Many contend President Bush, a lame duck with only 18 months left to serve, is "done." On the domestic front, where few of the preening peacocks on either side of the congressional aisle share enough of the president's vision and courage to risk the flak and shift our bankrupt entitlement programs to a more solid free-market footing, time will tell.

But overseas? "Sooner or later you have to quit permitting them to have a safe haven" along that Afghan-Pakistani border, Mr. Kringen of the CIA warned the House committee Wednesday.

Will George W. Bush be content to stand around for a year and a half, hoping the next president -- and his or her hand-picked candidate for secretary of state -- will wade in and do the job? If we were setting that line, we wouldn't bet on another 18 months of domestic tranquility for the murderers of Sept. 11.