MUST TRY HARDER



"My fellow Americans, we will not fail. We will persevere, and defeat this enemy, and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of liberty." -- President Bush, United States Army War College, 24th May

The International Institute for Strategic Studies publishes its annual survey today and concludes that if the War on Terror were a school pupil it'd be sent to the back of the class, given extra lessons and forced to re-sit the year.

The main findings:
* Al-Qaeda has fully reconstituted and set its sights firmly on the US and its closest western allies in Europe.
* Al-Qaeda must be expected tto keep trying to develop more promising plans for terrorist operations in North America and Europe, potentially involving weapons of mass destruction.
* There appears to be little chance in the immediate future that the security vacuum that has dominated Iraq since liberation can be filled.
* The war against terror and the Iraq conflict has led to diplomatic underinvestment in the Middle East peace process.