"Why Terrorism Doesn't Achieve It's Objectives"

Why do groups engage in terrorism?

They have some agenda, and believe violent acts will advance that agenda.

If you study history, does terrorism succeed in advancing a group's agenda?

The great majority of the time, no.

Why?

Well, according to this guy's neurological assessment of a study on the
failure of terrorist acts to advance the agendas of the world's current
batch of terrorist groups, it's because there is an evolutionary brain glitch
that causes even those who are very aware of the groups agenda to register
acts of terrorism as the group's ends, not the means. It's called
correspondent inference theory: the result of an action is judged to be the
intent of the person who performed it.

ex: Al Qaeda declared war on the U.S., giving the reason that the U.S.
backs the corrupt regime in Saudi Arabia through military presence, and
makes it impossible for Saudis to defend themselves or their country.

Al Qaeda executes terrorist attacks against U.S. Military targets and
Embassies. Americans at large don't pay attention, and classify them as a
group who have an agenda having to do with U.S. military policy.

Al Qaeda executes events of 9/11/01, and inflict civilian damage and
casualties. Americans convinced Al Qaeda wants to only further inflict
civilian damage and casualties and destroy America.

So, will Al Qaeda ever, through terrorist activity, convince the people of the
U.S. to pull back their support of the Saud family and allow Al Qaeda to
come to power in Saudi Arabia?

No. They WAAAAAAYY overshot their objective, to the point where they will
never be allowed by the global community to replace the "corrupt" regime
they fight against.

This is what happens the vast majority of the time when terrorism is used
to gain something (unless it is to repel an occupying force, which Al Qaeda
had pervious experience with during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan).
The few examples, notably Israeli terrorism against the peace-keeping British
forces in Palestine throughout the period after World War I up until
the end of World War II, seem to inspire terrorist groups to believe it is
a tactic that will get them what they want.

It doesn't, and the sooner the rest of the world acknowledges that hopefully
they'll get the message. There is no incentive to engage in terrorism against
civilian targets. All that will be achieved is escalating the fight with the
perception that you wish to escalate the fight all the way.

Of course, this works both ways. When a country inflicts civilian casualties
on a country it is seeking to "liberate,' the civilians of that country interpret
the result as the intention of the first country, rather than an unintentional
outcome.

The Evolutionary Brain Glitch That Makes Terrorism Fail.

MIT Study on Why Terrorism Fails. PDF (Will set cookie on your computer)

The Islamists DO want Spain back, since it is one of the lands "they"
(Moroccan muslims) conquered and ruled in history.

I'd question, though, just how far the Basque ETA have gotten with their
terrorism in Spain?

At it's extreme levels Islam is a completely intolerant religion, so much so that
it is completely intolerant of another sect that doesn't dot its
"i"s the same way. Such is religious absolutism. I almost think all the rest of the
world can do is contain them to blowing each other up, eventually.