Many of America's actions in its post-9/11 campaign against al-Qaida have served to increase Muslim and Arab radicalism, rather than to dampen it as intended. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, the detainment of captured terrorists at Gitmo and subsequent revelations regarding the use of water boarding and other torture techniques all served to amplify negative perceptions of the United States in the Islamic world and facilitate the radicalization of potential recruits for the terrorists' cause.
But two recent developments have led many Americans to believe that al-Qaida and the threat it posed might be on the verge of self-inflicted implosion, a victim of its own extremism. ...