Would the world be a safer place had the 9/11 attacks not happened? Impossible to say. Would the world have been a better place had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor? Maybe 9/11 opened our eyes to a reality thad we had been (deliberately?) unaware of. I put this question on the table... Have our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made the world safer?

Perhaps 9/11 and our governments (IMHO appropriate) responses to it haven't necessarily made the world safer, but have accelerated our reaction to issues that we should have been paying closer attention to in the pre 9/11 world. Maybe we have been put on a path that can lead us to a safer world.

The real questions are what should our goal be in foreign policiy, what should our time frame be, and by what metrics can we measure success.