Here at Project Syndicate is Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski:

Ten years later, it is clear that the fanatics behind those attacks miscalculated in two central respects.

They regarded Western democracies as weak – unwilling or unable to respond to their evil extremism. And they expected Muslim communities and countries around the world to rise up and mobilize behind their millenarian worldview…

The West’s effective crackdown on domestic extremism has tended to drive would-be terrorists – now often based in remote parts of the world, where they hope to operate with impunity – to higher levels of technical sophistication.

As a result, painful policy dilemmas arise, and they can divide even the closest allies. How best to respond if some states cannot or will not take the necessary steps to thwart terrorist planning on their territory? How to deal with evidence of terrorist planning gleaned from states suspected of practicing torture?

… Our societies are more resilient, open, and diverse than ever. That said, we are not doomed to succeed. Even well-intentioned social policies can have unwelcome consequences. Above all, we should be grateful to the police forces and intelligence agencies whose unflagging hard work and dedication far away from the public eye help keep us safe…

The 9/11 terrorists’ second blunder was to believe that their terrorist attacks would inspire irresistible surge in anti-Western Islamist extremism … far from leading some sort of worldwide Islamist revolution, the violent fanaticism of Al Qaeda and other organizations now resembles a repulsive, but manageable, form of ideological toxic waste.

Read the whole thing.