Terrorism analysts universally regarded 2006 as a disaster. As the year dragged to a close, the Iraq war seemed lost and al-Qaeda had formally gained a safe haven in Pakistan. Perhaps the only silver lining on a year of setbacks was an Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia that was off to a strong start, pushing back the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union. 2007 has been a far better year, largely due to the U.S.’s reversal of fortunes in Iraq. Yet al-Qaeda has also experienced its fair share of successes, in areas that may not garner as much media attention —but may have a lasting impact. In this article we provide a scorecard of the U.S.’s successes and setbacks over the past year, and offer our suggestions about what this means for 2008.

Iraq
The U.S. experienced its most stunning success in Iraq in 2007. To fully appreciate the dramatic turnaround, one must understand just how bad the situation was to begin the year. “By the end of 2006, deaths in Iraq peaked at over 3,000 monthly,” Bill Roggio, a civilian military affairs analyst who writes at the Long War Journal, told us. “Al-Qaeda and the Mahdi Army were able to establish safe havens in the ‘belts’ around Baghdad to facilitate attacks on U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces, while the rise in sectarian violence, fueled by these terror groups, brought Iraq to the brink of civil war.”

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When President Bush announced a shift in military strategy on January 10, accompanied by an increase in force levels (which came to be known as the “surge”), many politicians and pundits believed it was too little, too late — that the war was already lost. Yet by July, the signs of success were apparent. John Burns, Baghdad bureau chief for the New York Times, said in a late July interview with Hugh Hewitt that there was “no doubt that those extra 30,000 American troops are making a difference.” Burns noted that “crucial indicators of the war” had moved in the right direction, including fewer car bombs, lower levels of civilian casualties, and strategic successes against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Three primary factors contributed to these successes. Public attention focused on the increase in American troops. But beyond that, our war-fighting strategy fundamentally changed, as Gen. David Petraeus shifted toward a classical counterinsurgency strategy. A third factor was local allies. The simmering discontent with al-Qaeda first reached a boil in the Anbar province, where Sheikh Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi and the Anbar Salvation Front became a force for stability. This model spread throughout the country over the course of the year and led to other local allied groups, such as the Concerned Local Citizens. Though questions remain about the future, the U.S. clearly gained ground in Iraq in 2007.

Pakistan
Just as Iraq is the critical area where the U.S. gained ground, al-Qaeda experienced its key victories in Pakistan. The terror group’s gains in Pakistan can be traced back to 2006, when a pair of agreements — the North and South Waziristan Accords — formalized al-Qaeda’s safe haven there. This safe haven had been years in the making, as most of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership relocated to Pakistan after the Taliban fell to U.S. forces, then cooperated with sympathetic tribes to beat back a campaign by Pakistan’s military designed to flush out the terror group. Though Pakistan felt that it had no choice but to negotiate with al-Qaeda and its allies, it wasn’t difficult to predict the inevitable failure of Waziristan accords, which provided that Pakistan would no longer carry out military strikes in the region and would disband its human intelligence network. These accords laid the groundwork for al-Qaeda’s successes in Pakistan during the past year.

Pakistan made further concessions of tribal agencies in 2007, including Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand. There were numerous indicators of al-Qaeda’s reinvigoration throughout the year, including the assassination attempt against Benazir Bhutto, which strongly suggested extremist infiltration of the police and intelligence services. Islamic militants were able to capture more than 100 Pakistani soldiers at a time on more than one occasion, a chilling sign of their growing military strength. Aside from a raid on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, Pakistan experienced few successes. Even the state of emergency that Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf declared near the end of the year was aimed more at his supreme court than at Islamic militants.