Ignatius points to some worthwhile insights about terrorism in this piece, including the observation that when fighting a political war, public opinion -- make that world opinion -- is important. He is probably correct in stating that this MAY be a long war. It certainly would be a long war under Bush, but Obama's election is a game changer, especially in the ME. Attacking Obama's America won't make Jihadis the same kind of local hero that attacking Bush's America did. As for the efficacy of torture, Ignatius ignores the costs of false confessions extracted under torture, which sent the FBI and CIA on hundreds of wild goose chases. The most egregious example of a costly false confession is that of ibn al-shaykh al-Libi, who under torture, fabricated a story about Saddam training al Qaeda on WMD. The CIA later retracted all of al-Libi's "confession" but not until Bush had publicly used it to justify invading Iraq. Cheney might still argue that torture "works" since it provided a fig leaf for the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam, which was their goal from the time they took office.