The greatest media story of 2007 was the one you never read : The year was a strategic catastrophe for Islamist terrorists – and possibly a historic turning point in the struggle against al Qaeda and its affiliates.
That fundamental change in outlook, especially among Sunni Arabs, may well mark last year as Islamist terrorism’s high-water mark, the point at which fellow Muslims by the tens of millions publicly rejected the message and methods of self-styled holy warriors who revel in the slaughter of the innocent.
But 2007 may have been to the struggle against Islamofascism what 1943 was to the Second World War: the year in which it became clear that, no matter how long the war lasted, civilization’s enemies couldn’t win.
The lack of attention paid to the disaster that befell the terrorist cause – essentially acknowledged by Osama bin Laden’s “holiday” audio tape – is as if, in 1943, the Allied media hadn’t reported any Axis defeats.