The Next Attack The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right

We are losing. Five years after the September 11 attacks, America finds its strategic position deteriorating in the global war on terror. In The Next Attack, former White House counterterrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon show how the terrorist threat has evolved since 9/11 and how America has undermined its own goals, not only in the ill-considered invasion and occupation of Iraq but also through our failure to understand the jihadists' ideology. Our actions have confirmed Osama bin Laden's message in the eyes of disaffected Muslims in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere, and in doing so, we are clearing the way for the next attack. Benjamin and Simon argue that America needs a far-reaching and creative new strategy in combating Islamic radicalism, one that recognizes the costs of over-militarizing the battle against terrorwhile setting realistic priorities for homeland security. And in a new afterword, they show how the ideological conflict is deepening and spreading across an increasingly radicalized Muslim world. We ignore this warning at our peril.

Daniel Benjamin is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Steven Simon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Both served on the National Security Council staff for five years, and together they are also the authors of the award-winning The Age of Sacred Terror.