Locally and nationally, there are solemn ceremonies Thursday marking the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and drastically changed the politics and foreign policy of this nation.
Such ceremonies, while still heartfelt, have become more muted in recent years, but that's to be expected – a country cannot go on reliving a national trauma with the same intensity. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be healthy. Failed states, not healthy ones, obsess over grudges from long-ago defeats and humiliations. Healthy nation learn from disasters into which they were betrayed by complacency and failures of vigilance, and try to do better next time.
Unfortunately, as the 13th anniversary of 9/11 arrived, there was good reason to wonder how well we have succeeded at this. Thirteen years ago we faced a vicious terrorist organization that had a secure base in Afghanistan. Now, after the deaths and injuries of thousands of brave American military personnel, we're facing a vicious terrorist organization that controls sizable chunks of Iraq and Syria – according to some estimates, 35,000 square miles, or more than three times the size of Maryland.
On the eve of this anniversary, we heard from President Barack Obama about his plans for mobilizing a coalition of forces against the so-called Islamic State. The idea that American involvement in this troubled area of the world would end with the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq and Afghanistan was obviously a pipe dream.
For all our successes against al-Qaida, we have not wiped out Islamic extremism, because it seeps into the gaps when nations break down or fail to cohere. All the American effort in Iraq couldn't get that country's mutually hostile and suspicious Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to act like citizens of a nation. If past years have taught us anything, they should have taught us modesty about claims that we can succeed at "nation building."
But they should also have taught us that terrorist groups must be taken at their word when they threaten us. The lack of an effective response after the bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 led directly to 9/11. An organization that revels in the mass executions of civilians – and that, according to some estimates, has as many as 500 members with passports from Western nations – must be taken seriously.
The people we're fighting are ultimately history's losers. They are not going to stop education, modernization and technology by dreaming about a caliphate. Enduring movements aren't founded on revolting atrocities and videotaped beheadings. But if we are to keep ourselves safe, this fight may be this nation's business for a long, long time.