Periodically I give a seminar as part of a government course for counterterrorism analysts. The general topic for that segment is assessing the War on Terrorism, and I am billed as “The Optimist.” The organizers tell me they like to bring me in because I am provocative. That has always surprised me, because I never thought telling people they are doing a good job keeping the enemy at bay was particularly controversial. But you’d be surprised, as I am time and again, at the level of skepticism I run into. It is the same point of view reflected in the piece in Monday’s New York Times, based on intelligence-community sources, that says Al Qaeda is reconstituting. Their command and control is robust. They are running training camps. They are on the way back. Seems like five years into the war and we have nothing to show for it.

One frequently hears similar views in the debate over the war. So long as Osama bin Laden is alive, he is winning. The sanctuaries in North Waziristan are an Afghanistan redux. The Taliban are resurgent and on the verge of victory. The U.S. is bogged down, its resources stretched thin. They suckered us into the region, and now everything is going according to al Qaeda’s plan.

Part of the problem is that we attribute preternatural qualities to the terrorists while establishing standards for our own success that are unattainable. For example, the notion that anything at all is going according to al Qaeda’s plan is nonsense. Bin Laden laid out the strategic goals of the organization in his 1996 Declaration of War. What would winning look like in their framework? Osama bin Laden the most popular leader in the Muslim world, revered by all, leading an increasingly united nation of true believers. Attacks on U.S. and Coalition military installations and warships throughout the region, sometimes resulting in major losses, leading to a comprehensive retreat from the Middle East. Regimes in the region suffering internal revolts, riots, a breakdown of the internal security apparatus, mutinies among their troops, assassinations of key leaders, and eventually armies of mujahedeen seizing control of the capitals and pledging allegiance to bin Laden’s growing empire. A united Palestinian movement, religious in orientation and loyal to the al Qaeda program, waging a war to the death on an increasingly beleaguered and strategically isolated Israel. Incessant, occasionally dramatic attacks in the West and especially in the United States, showing the puissance of the movement and its ability to inflict damage on the U.S. at times and places of their choosing.

Is this the war we are fighting? Not even close. The U.S. is more involved in the region than ever before. No regimes in th