The Al Qaeda Obama Forgot

In May, Barack Obama told an audience at the National Defense University that the core of al Qaeda was "on the path to defeat." The "future of terrorism," Mr. Obama predicted, would involve "more localized threats," on the order of "the types of attacks we faced before 9/11," such as the 1988 Lockerbie bombing or the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. "Dealt with smartly and proportionately," he added, "these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11." He ended by calling for repeal of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force—Congress's declaration of war on al Qaeda.

On Monday, the front page of The Wall Street Journal ran with this headline: "Regrouped al Qaeda Poses Global Threat." The second shortest distance in Washington now runs between an Obama speech and its empirical disproof.

The news, of course, is that 19 U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa and the Middle East will be shuttered until Saturday. This is on account of electronic intercepts of terrorist communications, collected by Edward Snowden's former employers at the National Security Agency and described by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) as "very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11." Vice President Joe Biden has delivered closed-door briefings to Congress; Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) has warned the attacks could come in Europe, the U.S., or as "a series of combined attacks"; Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) calls the threat "a big deal."

After 11 years of taking our shoes off at airports, seven years of being forced to throw away tubes of toothpaste and cans of hair spray, five years of assuming the surrender position at the X-ray machine, three years of don't-touch-my-junk anthems, eight seasons of TV's "24" and two seasons of "Homeland," it takes a lot to get Americans worked up about a speculative terrorist threat. If Mr. Durbin says the threat is a big deal, it is.

Then again, it's also a big deal that the executive branch of government has been operating on a contrary set of assumptions. Yes, the president's May speech contained all the required caveats about the abiding terrorist threat and the continued need for vigilance. But the gist of the address was clear, as was its purpose: to declare the war on terror won—or won well-enough—and go home. Facts and analysis were arranged to suit the policy goal. But the facts and analysis were wrong.

Specifically: Mr. Obama believed that killing Osama bin Laden was a strategic victory. In fact, it was mainly a symbolic one (further undercut by his use of it as a political prop). He thought that ending the war in Iraq would help refocus U.S. efforts on Afghanistan. In fact, it showcased America's lack of staying power and gave the Taliban additional motivation to hold out during the president's halfhearted Afghan surge. He thought that substituting the Bush administration's approach to detainees with an approach heavy on drones would earn America renewed goodwill on the Arab street. In fact, there was no goodwill to renew in the first place, and the U.S. is more unpopular in Pakistan and Egypt today than it was six years ago.

He believed that staying out—completely out—of the war in Syria would contain the war to Syria and spare American lives and efforts. In fact, the war has generated a brand new branch of al Qaeda in the Nusra Front, helped regenerate the once-moribund Iraqi branch, and attracted jihadist recruits from Europe who may one day return to put their acquired skills into practice.

Finally, Mr. Obama believed that defeating "core al Qaeda"—the group around Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Afghanistan—effectively meant defeating al Qaeda, even if a few of its lesser offshoots in Africa or the Arabian Peninsula survived. In fact, al Qaeda was designed not as an organization with subordinate branches, but as a model with multiple franchises—as Burger King not General Motors.

In his speech, Mr. Obama insisted that "not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States." Yet if al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, or the Arabian Peninsula, or the Maghreb, or some as-yet unknown al Qaeda affiliate succeeds in bombing a U.S. embassy, taking down an airliner, or engineering a second 9/11, will it matter that the plot was hatched in Yemen or Somalia instead of Pakistan or Afghanistan?

Which brings us to the shortest distance in Washington: the one that runs between an Obama speech and the media's memory of it. The speech at the National Defense University was billed as a major presidential address. A lengthy article in the New York Times, written days later, reported it was a "window into the presidential mind," the result of "an exercise lasting months," a matter not just of Mr. Obama's policy, but of his very legacy.

Yet here we are, not three months later, faced with a threat that makes a comprehensive and vivid mockery of everything the president said. If there's a silver lining here, it's that the administration can put an end to the end of the war on terror without much fear of embarrassment. Better to do so now than in the wake of an attack.

It is in the nature of wisdom that it is only truly learned after it's first been mostly forgotten. The lesson of 9/11 was to not go back to pre-9/11 thinking. We may learn soon enough what price we'll have to pay for the benefit of rediscovering what we knew once before.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com