'Global' terrorism

"We will not be cowed by these sick terrorists," said British Prime Minister David Cameron after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) produced a grisly video of the mass beheading of Syrian captives by foreign jihadis who allegedly included British fighters. As if the purpose of terrorist attacks in Western countries was to cow and intimidate them.

You hear this sort of rhetoric from Western leaders all the time, but Canadian leader Stephen Harper went further, and demonstrated exactly how they get it wrong. "(This) will lead us to...redouble our efforts to work with our allies around the world and fight against the terrorist organisations who brutalise those in other countries with the hope of bringing their savagery to our shores. They will have no safe haven." Sound familiar? Sure enough, there are now half a dozen Canadian planes bombing ISIL jihadis in Iraq. But Harper has got the logic completely backwards. The purpose of major terrorist activities directed at the West, from the 9/11 attacks to ISIL videos, is not to "cow" or "intimidate" Western countries. It is to get those countries to bomb Muslim countries or, better yet, invade them.

The terrorists want to come to power in Muslim countries, not in Canada or Britain or the US. And the best way to establish your revolutionary credentials and recruit local supporters is to get the West to attack you.

That's what Osama bin Laden wanted in 2001. The ISIL videos of Western hostages being beheaded are intended to get Western countries involved in the fight against them, because that's how you build local support. So far, the strategy is working just fine.

The "Global Terrorism Index", published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, reported last week that...