How al-Qaeda Ended
Foreign Affairs analyst Audrey Kurth Cronin argues that the original al-Qaeda organization is effectively defunct and that U.S. officials should stop treating it as a surviving entity. While jihadist terrorism remains a global threat, she contends that the specific group responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been defeated.
Why it matters
This perspective challenges current U.S. foreign policy rhetoric and suggests a need to reframe the global war on terror to reflect current realities.
AUDREY KURTH CRONIN is Director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. She is the author of How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns .
Al-Qaeda has ended. The organization that Osama bin Laden founded and led, that attacked the United States 25 years ago and killed 2,977 innocent Americans in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania, no longer survives—and U.S. officials should say so, instead of burnishing the group’s legacy by acting and speaking as if it still exists. Terrorism has not ceased, jihadism has not gone away, and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran may ignite more anti-American sentiment and violence. But the group that attacked the United States on 9/11 is finished.
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