The al Qua'ida Trap

Patrick Cockburn of the Independent on al Qua'ida trap:

the real strength of al-Qaeda is that a quite small incident, that a botched attempt by a Nigerian student briefly in Yemen to blow up a plane, can then precipitate a whole change in international relations and US—greater US support for the Yemeni government, a greater involvement in a really difficult country. This seems to me walking straight into a sort of al-Qaeda trap. You know, at the time of 9/11, al-Qaeda quite openly—leaders quite openly said that their hope was to entrap the US into ground wars in Muslim countries. And that seems to be exactly what’s happening.

Cockburn is referring to exactly the mistake that is discussed in yesterday's post on Yemeni Radicalization Dynamics.