Periodically in these pages, we will take stock of where we are in the campaign against terrorism, considering the successes, mistakes, and possible roads into the future.

We should begin by separating the issues. There continues to be a "war" of the United States and much of the international community against Al Qaeda. There is also a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a war that slops over into Pakistan. Finally, there is a war of the United States and its allies against the Baathist regime in Iraq. The latter should perhaps now be understood as a war between occupying forces and radical Iraqi nationalists. We won the first two wars in the conventional sense. Our role is now best understood as that of the major supporter of emergent local regimes opposed by guerrilla forces. Al Qaeda did use the Taliban for its own ends, and today it is using the radical nationalist movement in Iraq for its own ends. But the goals of Al Qaeda are quite different: the other movements in the field are local, it is global; they are a threat to our forces in the field, Al Qaeda is a threat to both these forces and the homelands or leaders of the United States and many other countries. Today terrorism is also a tactic used by a variety of movements around the world. particularly by "Hamas" against Israel, in Kashmir by anti-Indian groups, in Sri Lanka by Tamil insurgents, and in Chechnya against Russian domination. To the extent we identify our interests with those of Israel, India, Sri Lanka, or Russia, these are major U.S. policy concerns. But they are not of the same nature as the Al Qaeda threat. These terrorisms can be brought to an end eventually, but the United States will not be the primary country responsible. There is also a more diffuse and ever-present terrorist threat within the United States and other countries. Events in Oklahoma City and Atlanta are recent examples. But this generalized terrorism was present before 9/11 and will never be entirely "defeated".

The tactics that we must adopt to fight these different terrorisms are quite different. In Afghanistan and Iraq we need to think primarily in terms of fighting guerrillas. It is true that our opponents use terrorism, but that is generally true of guerrilla war (unfortunately on both sides). We must also strengthen our ability to deal with generalized domestic terrorism. But in spite of its news worthiness, this is not a major threat to the country.

What is a new threat and a major potential future threat is the Al Qaeda movement, both because of its past successes and its ability to recruit dissatisfied Muslims from many countries for its operations.

We do not know where we stand in the struggle against Al Qaeda. After 9/11 its main success has been the ability of its threats to disrupt life in the United States (so far a minor inconvenience) and apparently to achieve significant casualties by attacks in Bali, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Nothing else has actually been accomplished in the West. Whether this is because of the partial destruction and dislocation of Al Qaeda leadership or the "anti-terrorism" actions we have taken is hard to know. It seems to me that we have not done nearly enough in the West to achieve this result.

When we are faced with such ignorance, it is difficult to convincingly criticize the "homeland security" and other actions that have been taken. It is our impression that these efforts have been far to diffuse and unfocused. It also seems that they have posed threats to the freedoms of all Americans that are not closely enough tied to the actual threats. But this is hard to prove.

It would help the discussion of what we are doing and what we should do, if it were made clearer what we were acting against. Specifically, this would mean that we justify whatever anti-terrorism measures we take in terms of the war against Al Qaeda. If this were to be done, it would have two positive results. First, we would be able to envisage "victory", thereby reducing the seriousness of reductions in freedom by noting their temporary nature. Secondly, we could focus our resources more specifically on what Al Qaeda would be likely to do, rather than the more diffuse "cover every community" approach now being taken by homeland security.