Breaking Terrorism Markets

Douglas Farah notes that with the Al Qaeda leadership now dead or in flight from Iraq, we might be on the verge of a replication the experience of the Andean drug wars of the 1980s. In that situation, the death and flight of the cartel leadership (and subsequent cocaine supply network decentralization), only made them harder to directly combat. It’s a sound historical cautionary note. But the difference of course is that in the drug war the market for cocaine remained largely unchanged and highly lucrative during cartel suppression. Whereas in Iraq, it may be that the Awakening has permanently damaged the (niche) market for foreign terrorism.