Skip to main content

ISIS and the Forgotten, Deadly Threat of Homegrown Terrorism

by Robert Wright


Last week, when President Obama announced his intention to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS, he gave a clear rationale: Leaders of the radical Islamist group had “threatened America and our allies.” Obama also explained how these leaders could make good on that threat: Americans and Europeans who go join ISIS, once “trained,” could return home and try to “carry out deadly attacks.”

That’s certainly conceivable. But it’s worth noting that in the 13 years since 9/11, that kind of attack hasn’t been the big problem. The most lethal attacks by radical Muslims on American soil have been of a different species: “homegrown” terrorism like the Fort Hood shooting of 2009, which killed 13 people, and the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, which killed three people and injured more than 250.

The perpetrators of these attacks weren’t people who had been lured abroad by jihadists, given terrorism training, and dispatched to America with a mission. They were people who, while in America, got alienated, got inspired by jihadist propaganda, and, if any expert instruction was necessary (like how to make the bomb the marathon bombers used), got it via the Internet. Apparently the kind of terrorism that’s hardest to fight is the kind that ferments at home.

And what makes it ferment? In both the Boston Marathon and the Fort Hood cases, the attackers seem to have been driven by the perception that the U.S. is at war with Islam, as evinced (in their minds) by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, if homegrown terrorism is fostered by the perception that the U.S. is at war with Islam, what should we do to counter that perception? Here’s what I don’t recommend: Declare war on an entity that calls itself the Islamic State, enmeshing yourself in combat that will last for years.

Obviously, this entity doesn’t deserve to be called the Islamic State, because its values don’t align with the values of the great majority of the world’s Muslims. But the relatively small number of Muslims who are vulnerable to the appeal of terrorism will consider a war against this “Islamic State” a war against Islam.

The problem of terrorism is complicated, and so is the problem of ISIS. I’m not saying that our thinking about how to respond to ISIS should begin and end with the question of whether declaring war on it will foster homegrown terrorism. But, given that, since 9/11, homegrown terrorism is the only kind of Islamic terrorism that has shown much in the way of an ability to actually kill people in the United States, it would be nice if the debate over how to handle ISIS at least included some discussion of the question.

Yet, during the deliberations over what to do about ISIS, did we hear a single member of the administration raise the question of homegrown terrorism? Or a single influential commentator? So far I haven’t found any examples. This tweet of mine, for example, failed to elicit evidence of such a thing. 

A few commentators did raise related questions. After the first bombing strikes, Dan Drezner asked on bloggingheads.tv whether they might have led ISIS to direct more fire toward America. That’s not the same as the question of homegrown terrorism, which can happen regardless of whether ISIS focuses on the U.S. Still, to even raise the question of blowback at that point (late August) was to place oneself among a minority of prominent U.S. foreign-policy commentators.

Assuming ISIS does turn its gaze more to the U.S., and tries to train and deploy anti-American terrorists, as Obama fears, its recruiting will likely be helped by America’s new war on it. The man who is the best post-9/11 example of the kind of terrorist Obama seems worried about is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka the “underwear bomber,” who got training from an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen but failed in his 2009 attempt to blow up an airliner. His main guru seems to have been Anwar al-Awlaki, who relentlessly harped on the America-is-at-war-with-Islam theme. (A poster for an event Abdulmutallab organized in 2007 as a London college student was set against a background photo of a Muslim detained at Guantanamo, kneeling, shackled, and hooded.)

The reason homegrown terrorism is worth worrying about isn’t that there are many American Muslims prone to commit it—there manifestly aren’t. The danger is that even a few such attacks could create a backlash (anti-Muslim bigotry and violence, more oppressive surveillance of Muslims, etc.) that could create more homegrown terrorism, which would lead to more backlash, etc: this would be a positive feedback cycle of a very negative kind.

Again, I’m not saying that the prospect of homegrown terrorism, or even of blowback in general, is by itself a killer argument against Obama’s de facto declaration of war (though I do think that, all told, the declaration was a mistake). I’m mainly saying that America’s national-security discourse is in need of repair. When we face a crucial foreign-policy decision, it fails to factor in glaringly obvious considerations.

The kind of terrorism that's hardest to fight is the kind that ferments at home.

In this case, the nation was too busy reacting to actually think. Once we saw a couple of gruesome videos that seem to have been designed to freak us out, many Americans obligingly freaked out. And virtually nobody of stature said, “Wait, let’s not get emotional. Let’s think this through carefully.” Certainly not Secretary of State John Kerry, who said that ISIS, manifesting “sheer evil” was a “cancer” that must be stopped. (Dubious metaphor; with cancer, the medicine doesn’t risk making the cancer itself stronger, the way Kerry’s prescription for fighting ISIS does.) And certainly not Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who said ISIS poses “an imminent threat to every interest we have.” Every single interest!

A central lesson of the disastrous Iraq War is that one job of a post-9/11 president is to calm fears, not feed them. Some of us voted for Barack Obama thinking he would do that, and help restore reason to foreign policy discourse. For a while it looked like we were right. Now it looks like we weren’t.

source: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/will-obamas-isis-strategy-actually-worsen-the-terror-threat/380465/?single_page=true

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Smart Security, Free Society: Malaysia’s Data Dilemma

In today’s digitally driven world, national security is no longer confined to borders or traditional threats. Cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and asymmetric warfare have become the new frontiers of conflict. Malaysia, strategically located in Southeast Asia and increasingly exposed to regional tensions and internal vulnerabilities, must strengthen its security apparatus. However, doing so must not come at the cost of civil liberties. Malaysia can enhance its security strategy by leveraging insights from advanced data platforms like those pioneered by Palantir Technologies, while maintaining strong democratic oversight to safeguard the fundamental freedoms protected by the Federal Constitution. Palantir Technologies, a U.S.-based company, gained prominence in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Its core software, Gotham, was designed to integrate fragmented intelligence and provide real-time, actionable insights to military and intelligence agencies. Over the years,...

Syringe Attacks in Malaysia and France: Random Violence or Terrorism? - Part 3

The syringe attack on the 12-year-old son of Pandan MP and former Economy Minister, Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli, has shaken Malaysia. What initially appeared as a rare and bizarre incident now echoes a disturbing pattern witnessed abroad, notably in France. In June 2025, during the Fête de la Musique festival, over 145 people across France reported being pricked with syringes in crowded public areas. In both cases, the weapon of fear was not a gun or bomb but a syringe. When viewed together, the Rafizi incident and the mass needle attacks in France reveal an alarming global trend of unconventional, psychological violence that leaves behind not just physical uncertainty but emotional trauma. The question we must now ask is: are these acts simply random criminality, or should they be treated with the gravity of terrorist attacks? A Pattern Beyond Borders In France, the attacks spanned multiple cities, with 13 confirmed cases in Paris alone. Victims included women, men, and even min...

Constitution of Malaysia: An Introduction Part 5

7 (1) No person shall be punished for an act or omission which was not punishable by law when it was done or made, and no person shall suffer greater punishment for an offence than was prescribed by law at the time it was committed. (2) A person who has been acquitted or convicted of an offence shall not be tried again for the same offence except where the conviction or acquittal has been quashed and a retrial ordered by a court superior to that by which he was acquitted or convicted.