"The prelude to an almost inevitable future"

It is time to stop demonizing Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida and focus on the broader threat. Massive population increases, poverty, decaying educational and social infrastructure, culture shock and alienation, and failed secularism affect far too much of the Islamic world. Yemen and Somalia are only the two worst cases, and some form of extremist and terrorist threat is likely to be a regional constant for the next two decades – regardless of whether the US and its allies win or lose in Afghanistan.

-- from Realism in Afghanistan by Anthony Cordesman

As Pericles is reported to have said, I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of our enemies' designs.