Expert: Yemen Ties Could Be "Game Changer"

Expert: Yemen Ties Could Be "Game Changer"
CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate Says Attempted Attack Could Change How the Administration Views Yemen
Christmas terrorism: Presidents at war

by Mark Silva

Nearly eight months into George W. Bush's presidency, with an administration intent on pursuing a decidedly domestic agendaprimarily education, immigration and tax reforma deadly act of terrorism turned the course of not only a new president, but also American history.

A little after 11 months into Barack Obama's presidency, with an administration intent on fulfilling far-reaching domestic promiseshealth-care and immigration reform among them, as well as the revival of a recession-riddled economyanother shocking, apparent attempt at terrorism on Christmas Day has reminded a nation turned inward on its own problems about the threats outside.

It did not take long for the United States to respond to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that claimed nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York, at the Pentagon outside Washington and in a random field in Pennsylvania: With a congressional authorization of force, American military forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled a militant Taliban regime that had sponsored the al Qaeda operatives who plotted the attacks of 9/11. The al Qaeda-trained team paid cash for tickets, hijacked four airliners, deployed three as missiles and lost one in a remote field to a passenger revolt.

Eight years later, with an alleged terrorist accused of trying to bomb an airliner bound for Detroit, the elaborate fortress of security-screening that the Bush administration built around the nation's airports has been penetrated by another man who apparently paid cash for his ticket and boarded an airliner in Amsterdam armed with incendiaries, allegedly intent on taking down another plane.

And eight years later, American forces still are engaged in Afghanistanindeed Obama is escalating the U.S. military force to nearly 100,000 troops by next summerwith the president explaining the expanded mission there as a matter of disabling the al Qaeda forces that have taken root in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan with the help of a resurgent Taliban .

It was the son of a wealthy Saudi family, Osama bin Laden, whose own nation had disowned him, who authorized the attacks of 9/11. Now it is the son of a wealthy Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabwhose own father reportedly had alerted the American embassy there that his son was taking a worrisome, radicalized pathwho is accused of a botched terrorist attack. He reportedly has claimed connections to al Qaeda.

Bush maintained, as he campaigned for the White House, that he had no interest in "nation-building.'' But the events of 9/11 quickly thrust the United States into a nation-rebuilding mission in Afghanistan, and Bush volunteered the U.S. for a nation-rebuilding mission in Iraq. Obama maintains that the U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan once it is enabled the nation's own forces to provide its own security, yet the relenting threat of terrorism continually raises new questions about what it will take for the U.S. to ever declare safety.

One president confronted a stunning terrorist threat at the start of the 21st Century, another confronts a similar, perhaps diminished ,threat at the end of the first decadewhile worrying that the enemy is stronger than suspected.

One decade in, the most powerful nation in the world is reminded of the risks which apparently no amount of military force and no amount of domestic security is able to avert. A couple of wealthy men with the enmity of an army have attacked a nation-building power. One tragically succeeded. Another has failed. Others, too, have tried. So, once again, all eyes turn to averting the next assault.

Obama's First Year: Has He Fallen Short?

Is the health care bill a victory for President Obama, or is the bill too watered down for his constituency to consider it a winner? How has the rest of the administration's agenda fared in Obama's first year? Host Scott Simon speaks with NPR news analyst Juan Williams for reaction, as well as an assessment of how President Obama has fared in his first year in office.