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Then it comes to the War on Terror, America’s progress, while tangible, has been far from clear-cut. It is abundantly clear that there will be no surrender onboard a U.S. Navy ship like we saw after World War II. Islamist jihadists are not rational actors; they are fanatics. As President George W. Bush said after 9/11, this would be a long war. Nevertheless, we have made major progress, highlighted by the fact we have not seen 9/11-type attacks on the homeland in the last decade, and we have weakened al-Qaeda’s appeal to the masses (what many refer to as “the narrative”). That can be chalked up to two events: the killing of Bin Laden, and al-Qaeda’s targeting of innocent Muslims around the world. However, more work remains to be done. Partly as a result of our success—particularly the drone program—the threat to the U.S. homeland is now more diffuse and harder to detect. We also face the issue of homegrown radicalization, which our system inherently is not well-equipped to disrupt. We saw evidence of this in Times Square and at Fort Hood. Moreover, we have not characterized the nature of the current conflict properly, particularly after 9/11. We must continue to work to characterize the conflict as one not against Islam, as is often claimed by al-Qaeda, but rather one that is against al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism. The U.S. government and all agencies involved in this fight must make the argument clear: al-Qaeda has killed far more Muslims than Americans in the last 10 years, so who is really at war with Islam? We must offer an alternative narrative to the message of death and hate promulgated by al-Qaeda. Our successes on the battlefield have meant the franchising of al-Qaeda throughout the Middle East and Africa, particularly to Yemen, Somalia and North Africa. This is one of the the most significant and dangerous developments the U.S. will have to confront post-Bin Laden. The political situation in Yemen has given AQAP and al-Shabaab safe havens and the ability to plot new attacks on the homeland. The relative success of al-Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki in recruiting and radicalizing Americans, as well as English-speaking Muslims from other Western nations, is a real and immediate threat to U.S. national security—one which the Intelligence Community is combating head on. The ongoing state of unrest in the region makes the threat posed by Awlaki even more difficult to neutralize. In the short term, I fear the combined death of Bin Laden and unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa could force al-Qaeda to launch an attack to prove they are still relevant players in the Muslim world. Over the long term, al-Qaeda will die out as an organization and a movement. They stand for death, which isn’t a good long-term strategy. In the interim, however, we need to be aware of the Bin Laden network’s evolution—and adapt ourselves. Al-Qaeda’s operational doctrine in recent years has focused on recruiting and radicalizing Westerners and United States citizens capable of conducting attacks in the U.S. This new shift is a “game changer” and presents a major challenge to the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The threat no longer emanates solely from remote al-Qaeda operatives coordinating attacks halfway across the world, but now also from radicalized citizens residing here in the homeland who are ready to conduct terrorist attacks against their own communities. The emergence of influential, English-speaking al-Qaeda representatives such as Adam Gadahn and Anwar al-Awlaki has allowed al-Qaeda to successfully target American citizens in its recruitment efforts. Unfortunately, one of our biggest threats in the years ahead will remain one we have been fighting since 1979, the world’s most prolific state sponsor of global terrorism: Iran. The stretch of Iran’s tentacles across the globe is a menace the Intelligence Community and our allies abroad will be combating as long as the current regime is in power. In fact, this is something my Homeland Security Subcommittee recently addressed with respect to an ever increasing nefarious role of Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah in Latin America. It is particularly alarming to see the threat Iran poses to stability in the Middle East. This was magnified for me on a recent trip I took to the region, where I had the opportunity to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who adamantly stated that the number one threat to the region is Iran. It is truly alarming to think how emboldened Iran will be should they successfully acquire a nuclear weapon. The nature of the War on Terror has changed dramatically since the days after the September 11th attacks. The future battlefield in this war will be multifaceted, from “lone wolves” like Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan to coordinated attacks emanating from lawless countries like Yemen and unstable ones like Pakistan. Our efforts will likely involve a steady combination of enhanced intelligence collection, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks and raids conducted by special operations units, like we saw against Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Partly as a result of U.S. success in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, there has been a geographic dispersal of al-Qaeda affiliates and a rise of regional franchises attempting to find safe havens to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland. In early 2009, we saw one of the most prominent examples of this trend with the announcement of the creation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), notably by two former Guantánamo detainees that escaped to Yemen from Saudi Arabia. The geographic battlefield is always evolving. Conceptually, meanwhile, we are already fighting in the battlefield of the future: the Internet. The notion that an individual can be alone in the darkness of his basement at a computer in Philadelphia emailing with a jihadi cleric the likes of Anwar al-Awlaki and not be doing anything illegal is incredibly troubling; it is also difficult to detect and combat. We live in an open society where everyone enjoys civil liberties provided by our democracy. It will be a balance to maintain them and simultaneously ensure security. Ultimately, our challenge today is the same as it was after 9/11: we must not let terrorists force us to change our way of life and the value system that makes the U.S. the greatest country in the world. In that, I have confidence we will prevail.