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IT STANDS to reason that 19 men cannot change history. But they did. Five years and two American led wars later, the world created by the September 11th hijackers is a darker place than almost anyone predicted at the start of the new century. AlQaeda itself may have been battered and dispersed, but the idea it stands for has spread its poison far and wide.
The essence of that idea, so far as a coherent one can be distilled from the ferment of broadcasts and fat was issued by Osama bin Laden and his disciples, is that Islam is everywhere under attack by the infidel and that every Muslim has a duty to wage holy war, jihad, in its defence. America is deemed a special target for having trespassed on the Arab heartland. Intoxicated by their defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the jihadists are hungry to topple another superpower.
This cause had deadly adherents before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in 2001. Mr bin Laden issued his "Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders" in 1998, the year al Qaeda bombed two American embassies in East Africa. But an honest tally of the record since September 11th has to conclude that the number of jihadists and their sympathisers has probably multiplied many times since then. It has multiplied, moreover, partly as a result of the way America responded.
The first of the two wars George Bush launched after September 11th looked initially like a success, and compared with the second it still is. Al Qaeda operated openly in Afghanistan and enjoyed the protection of its noxious Taliban regime, which refused America's request to hand Mr bin Laden over. America's invasion, one month after America itself had been attacked, therefore enjoyed broad international support.
The fighting ended swiftly and the political aftermath went as well as could be expected in a polity as tangled as Afghanistan's. By 2004 a firstever free election had legitimated the presidency of Hamid Karzai. A ramshackle but representative parliament took office in 2005. The country is plagued by warlordism and the opium trade, and Taliban fighters are mounting a challenge in the south. But they do not yet look capable of dislodging the new government in Kabul.
Even though Mr bin Laden himself eluded America's forces in Afghanistan, the invasion deprived al Qaeda of a haven for planning and training. This achievement, however, was cancelled out by the consequences of Mr Bush's second war: the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. There, three and a half years on, fighting and terrorism kill hundreds every month, providing the jihadists with both a banner around which to recruit and a live arena in which to sharpen their military skills.
Why has Iraq turned out so much worse than Afghanistan? Not only because of the familiar catalogue of Rumsfeldian incompetence-disbanding Iraq's army, committing too few American troops-but also because of al Qaeda itself. Like most Sunni extremists, some in al Qaeda regard Shia Muslims as virtual apostates. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the movement's leader in Iraq, managed before being killed last June to organise so many attacks on Shias and their holy places that after a long forbearance the Shias at last struck back, turning what had been an insurgency against the Americans and the new government into a bitter sectarian war.
人们有理由相信19个人无法改变历史，但这些人确实做到了。5年来，在美国挑起的两次战争之后，世界形势在经历了9•11撞击后比本世纪初几乎任何人预料到的都要糟。基地组织本身也许已经被摧毁，但它所代表的思想意识毒害散播的范围要广的多。
这种思想意识可以从目前躁动的广播和本•拉登及其信徒们的指示中清楚地提炼出来其思想本质，那就是伊斯兰正经受着来自各处的异教徒的进攻，因此每一个穆斯林都有义务开展圣战进行自卫。美国被认为是一个擅自闯入阿拉伯中心区域的特殊目标。由于依然陶醉于80年代在阿富汗击败前苏联的胜利之中，圣战徒们急于推翻另一超级大国。
此想法在2001年撞击五角大楼和世贸中心前有亡命之徒般的追随者。1998年基地组织在东非炸毁两座美国大使馆，同年，本•拉登发表了呼吁全世界伊斯兰站在抗争犹太人和欧美人圣战前线的宣言。但真实的情况是，自9•11以来，圣战徒及其支持者的人数恐怕已经翻了几番，而且此人数的增长与美国的回应有关。
在9•11后布什发动的两次战争中，前者初期看起来较为成功，相比于后者仍不算失败。恶名昭著的塔利班政权拒绝向美国交出本•拉登。基地组织在其保护下公开地在阿富汗运作。因此美国遭受袭击一个月后入侵阿富汗，也赢得了广泛的国际支持。
战争迅速结束,战后政治进程也与人们料想到的能在政体紊乱的阿富汗所进行的一样顺利。到2004年已由首次自由选举选出了卡尔扎依总统。一届摇摇欲坠却有代表性的议会2005年正式成立。虽然阿富汗现今充斥着军阀势力和鸦片贸易，塔利班还在南方展开了抵抗，但他们看起来还不具备将新政府赶出首都喀布尔的能力。
尽管本•拉登本人逃离了驻阿富汗美军的打击，但阿富汗战争的确使基地组织失去了组织计划与训练的场所。可是,这一成果被布什发动的第二场战争--2003年3月入侵伊拉克--所产生的后果给抵消了。伊拉克三年半以来,战斗和恐怖主义每月导致数百人丧生。这既给圣战徒们提供了招募新兵的幌子，又提供了能够提高武装力量的鲜活的训练基地。
为什么伊拉克的结局比阿富汗糟糕呢?不仅仅有像国防部长拉姆斯菲尔德的无能所导致的一连串失误--解散伊拉克军队，派遣过少的美军士兵--还由于基地组织本身。像大部分逊尼派极端分子一样，一些基地组织成员视什叶派穆斯林为宗教叛徒。该运动领导人Abu Musab al Zarqawi在去年6月被杀前，多次成功地击败针对什叶派和圣城的袭击。在长时间忍让之后，什叶派也最终开始反击，将本已严峻的伊拉克形势从经常性地向美军与新政府进行攻击拖入了更深的宗教派别战争的泥潭。
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