The Iraq Effect

In the article The Iraq Effect: War Has Increased Terrorism Sevenfold Worldwide of MotherJones, Peter Berger and Paul Cruickshank answer the highly controversial question of how has the Iraq War affected international terrorism.


"Our study shows that the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks ... even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third ... our study shows that the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of the Al Qaeda ideological virus...
Also undermining the argument that Al Qaeda ... [is] being distracted from plotting against Western targets are the dangerous, anti-American plots that have arisen since the start of the Iraq War. There have been six jihadist attacks on the home soil of the United States’ NATO allies ... in the period after the invasion of Iraq, whereas there were none in the 18 months following 9/11...
...the pool of Muslims who dislike the United States has grown by hundreds of millions since the Iraq War began...
The rate of attacks in Arab countries jumped by 445 percent since the Iraq invasion, while the rate of killings rose by 783 percent....
While Iraqis make up the great bulk of the insurgents, several studies have shown that the suicide attackers in Iraq are generally foreigners...
Our study shows just how counterproductive the Iraq War has been to the war on terrorism."