2007: A Global Assessment of the Confrontation (WP)

(WP)From the World Defense Review

The conflict we call the War on Terror still continues at the end of 2007, and all indications are that its battlefields are expected to spread further, and escalate, in the upcoming year.

The following is a global assessment of the confrontation that has taken place since 2001, though the systematic war waged by Jihadi forces against democracies and the free world began at least a decade before 9/11. This evaluation isn’t comprehensive or definitive, but a collection of observations related to major benchmarks, directions and projections.

Global cohesion lacking

The main powers and allies involved in the War on Terror still lack global cohesion. While the US, in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, integrates those efforts with its efforts globally to defeat al Qaeda and contain nuclear proliferation of rogue regimes like Iran, other powers and blocs of countries have different outlooks and plans. While Britain and other U.S partners in Europe espouse common views on a global scale, France, Germany, Spain and Italy agree on the Afghan theater but still are uninvolved in the Iraqi theater. All Atlantic partners, however, pursue al Qaeda and consider it – along with other Salafi networks - as the principal threat. Also, most Western partners perceive the Iranian threat as serious, although differ in the ways in which to respond.

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