The 20th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, is an occasion to look back on the American response to the atrocities, how and why they occurred, and what the implications are for future global policy dealing with terrorist groups. The long war in Afghanistan, a war-torn country that harbored Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and the subsequent war in Iraq took hundreds of thousands of lives, among them several thousand American military, and ushered in a global war on terror that by most reckonings has had doubtful…
