First, today’s terrorists worship death. Throughout history, warriors have planned to fight and die if necessary, but to survive if possible. Today’s suicide bombers have turned that notion on its head. They don’t expect to survive, and don’t even bother making plans to escape. This death cult debuted on the world stage with Al Qaeda on September 11, but in the interceding ten years has been taken up by different groups and well as individuals. The September 11 hijackers learned how to fly 747s, but skipped the lessons on how to land them, because they expected to die.

In 2008, Muhammad Mahdi Akef, one of the founders and later Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, advocated teaching youngsters to become “mujahidin who love to die as much as others love to live.” Extremist leaders see that as their competitive advantage – as long as their followers are more willing to die than the people they attack are willing to die defending themselves, the terrorists will ultimately prevail. As long as they can sell enough of their people on the death cult as an instant ticket into a heavenly afterlife, they win.

Second, today’s terrorists, be they Islamic extremists or right wing extremists, don’t distinguish between military and civilian victims. Their ideological extremism dictates that everyone of a certain culture is the enemy, not just the governments or armies. And since they are all enemies, they are all fair game. No man, woman or child is innocent or exempt.

And therein lies their second competitive advantage. It’s easier to target civilians because they’re easier to kill. They’re less protected than military targets, rarely able to offer resistance, and just about anything can be used as a weapon against them– fertilizer, dynamite, a jet plane filled with fuel.

Finally, terrorism is asymmetrical warfare. For the ideological extremists, there are no rules. They don’t worry about civilian casualties, their own or their enemies. If their own people die conducting suicide attacks, they go to heaven. If their own people die in those attacks, they’re collateral damage, to be exploited for their political advantage in the world court of public opinion.

Yet the culture, or people, or religion terrorists attack do still play by the rules. We go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties – our and theirs – when defending ourselves at home or attacking terrorist bases abroad. We bend over backwards to extend legal rights to suspected terrorists, even if doing so exposes us to danger.

Despite all this, we have made great strides in defeating terrorism in the last decade. Much of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership has been killed, and their organization degraded. But it has come at great cost to us. And, despite two wars and over a trillion dollars, our efforts have not ended the threat of terrorism.

While Osama bin Laden may be dead, a new second generation of Islamic terrorists has taken their place, and they have opened franchises throughout the world, in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and even in Europe. They’ve proven adaptive and innovative. According to US intelligence officials, they now represent a greater threat to the US homeland than Al Qaeda. And, while they have not executed any large scale attacks on the level of September 11, they and we know one fundamental truth – they only have to succeed once, while we have to be successful 100% of the time. Eventually, they will get lucky.

There is a third generation of terrorists now emerging, who seem less tethered to international movements, and as likely to be right wing fanatics as Islamic jihadists. They are lone wolf, homegrown extremists who find their way to terrorism through the internet. They don’t go to training camps in Pakistan, and often have no military experience themselves. These individuals are often self-radicalized, and play out their violent fantasies on line first before putting them into action on their neighbors.

Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous rampage in Oslo last week is one of this coming wave of terrorists. He combines the three deadly aspects of the original Islamic terrorists – death cult, targeting civilians and asymmetrical fighting – with a new element. He could be the neighbor next door.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/07/27/why-terrorism-is-new-wave-warfare/#ixzz1TWYjiyPe

At nearly the same moment, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the perennial talks between Israel and the Palestinians are set to begin anew; talks which would result in “the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.” And, Secretary Clinton assures us, these talks “can be completed within one year.”

This fixation with a one-year timetable is not a coincidence. It’s the Obama administration’s plan to deal with Iran. They think the road to Tehran runs through Jerusalem.

The Obama administration, and the Bush administration before it, failed to derail Iran’s nuclear weapons program. So we’re now watching a train wreck in slow motion. The United States (and Israel) will have to come to grips, within the year, of either bombing Iran or letting Iran get the bomb. Either one will be a disaster.

If we (or Israel) bomb Iran, it will ignite a regional war, as Iran inevitably retaliates. It could do any or all of the following: give Hezbollah and Hamas the green light to launch their large stockpiles missiles on every square mile of Israel; unleash sleeper terrorist cells in Europe and the U.S.; and mine the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of all worldwide oil shipments flow. The price of oil would skyrocket to $400-500 a barrel overnight, and plunge the world into another, even more serious recession. At the same time, the world’s oil producing states would reap windfall profits.

The job of sweeping the Strait free of mines would fall to the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, thus drawing the U.S. into a third war in the region. And, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen has said, even a successful bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear sites wouldn’t stop their program, but only set it back a few years.

On the other hand, if we don’t stop Iran’s nuclear program, the entire Middle East will be swept into an arms race – a nuclear arms race. Neighboring Sunni Arab states will not stand idly by and let Shiite Persian Iran dominate the region. They will rush to “nuke up,” too. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on – in the Middle East or anywhere else. And, if the single most volatile, dangerous part of the world is awash in nuclear weapons, it is only a matter of time before one gets detonated – accidentally, intentionally or inadvertently.

So, what’s the Obama administration’s plan to deal with these horrors? Officially, they say the military option remains on the table. But almost no one believes they mean it, least of all the nations in the region.

Instead, the administration thinks they can contain Iran, and manage the situation. First, they think if they extend America’s nuclear umbrella over the region, the Sunni states will no longer think it’s necessary to acquire their own nuclear weapons. And in the bizarre world of nuclear theory, the administration thinks Iran will be deterred from ever using its nuclear weapons by the threat that America might use its nuclear weapons in retaliation to an Iranian attack. This raises the question of how credible Obama’s promise to trade Tel Aviv for Texas might be, which is what extending the nuclear umbrella would mean.

The administration also plans, as one administration official told me, to force an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and thereby “change the trajectory” in the Middle East away from war and towards peace and economic development. According to this plan, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would clock in just ahead of a nuclear Iran, and thereby make Iran, even a nuclear Iran, increasingly irrelevant in the region.

This raises the question of how easy it’s going to be to force the Israelis and Palestinians to reach an agreement that both sides would honor. It is an issue that has proved illusive since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, and bedeviled the region for millennia. Secretary Clinton should know better than to predict an agreement in a year’s time. President Clinton came closest to forging a peace agreement and nearly succeeded, only to have the Palestinians renege in the 11th hour. And even if the administration were able to force an agreement, what guarantees are there that Hamas would honor any deal signed by its Palestinian adversary Fatah?

If containing a nuclear Iran is such a long shot — as surely the administration must know even if officials won’t admit it publicly — then why come out now with this one-year timetable and reassurances that a year is a long period of time? Because in the end, Team Obama thinks the greatest threat to peace in the region comes not from Iran, even a nuclear Iran, but from Israel and a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Just when you thought the Afghanistan mini-series was winding down, it’s headed for another season – turns out all those goat herders and militants are sitting on one of the world’s largest deposits of valuable minerals. It will be like “The Beverly Hillbillies” with guns and turbans.

Let’s recap the show so far: Nearly 30 years ago the Soviets invaded Afghanistan where they were met by a stubborn resistance movement of religious fanatics – which neighbor Pakistan encouraged and the U.S. secretly supported. The Soviets became bogged down and ultimately quit Afghanistan, tail between their legs.

The Taliban took over and played host to Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization bent on destroying western civilization.

Al Qaeda attacked us on Sept 11, so we attacked Afghanistan.

In quick order we toppled the Taliban and drove the motley remnants of Al Qaeda into Pakistan.

We stuck around to bring democracy to a country where the vast majority of the population was illiterate and essentially living in the 15th century. The democratic government we formed under Karzai turned out to be corrupt and incompetent.

Meanwhile, the Taliban reconstituted itself, and headed back to into the fight, where they made inroads into Afghanistan’s south and east.

America elected Barack Obama, on his claims that Afghanistan was the ‘good war,’ while Iraq was the ‘bad Bush war.’ So Obama redoubled our efforts in Afghanistan; surging more troops and changing our strategy back to nation building, while but promising to withdraw U.S. forces in 2011.

And now, we’re in a fight that isn’t going so well. Americans are war weary, and Obama’s stuck in a conflict experts say it will take another 5 to 10 years to win.

And suddenly the planet’s poorest country is about to have the entire world, no doubt led by China, knocking at its door looking for cheap resources.

This is just about as complicated and confusing and frustrating as the TV series “Lost.”