The second part of that war was that Muslims came from all over the country to Pakistan, and they met each other. For the first time those men had an awareness of the Islamic world as a whole, not of just Egypt or Algeria or Indonesia, but of what Muslims call the Uma, the Islamic community. And that's an extraordinarily important thing. And that emanated in Pakistan.
Michael ScheuerIn an odd way, we have really destroyed two of our strongest allies against the Islamists. Saddam Hussein, and we've probably fatally undermined Bashir al Assad in Syria.
Michael ScheuerI think we'll see it mostly in the United States. We're getting to the point where al Qaeda is ready to again attack us inside America. I think we're basically defenseless.
Michael ScheuerIn terms of Iraq, al Qaeda valued Iraq because we destroyed a government it wanted destroyed and because we put soldiers on the ground and forces that they could attack. Al Qaeda is basically an insurgent organization that was formed on the model of the Afghan groups. And being bred in that war, they value a contiguous safe haven as much as anything else.
Michael Scheuer