But will anyone listen?

In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.

This is a quote from CIA Director John Brennan in a Japan Times article titled “As Islamic State loses turf, it looks to send terrorists to the West: Brennan,” June 16, 2016. According to the Japan Times, this is from testimony that Brennan was scheduled to deliver to a Congressional committee today. On the way in to work this morning, I heard that he had indeed said words to this effect.

In various Econlog posts and in articles on antiwar.com, I have argued that U.S. military intervention abroad leads to an increased probability of terrorist attacks at home. Many others have argued it also.

In the last decade, neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz agreed with that point as it related to Osama bid Laden. In a famous interview with Vanity Fair in 2003, he stated:

There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed–but it’s huge–is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda.

And now we see that John Brennan agrees, at least insofar at it relates to ISIS.