On that ill-fated day, 25 years ago, the world stood united. The attack on the US was seen as a brutal assault on the very idea of a modern, open society. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1368, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) invoking Article 5 for the first and only time, and the global outpouring of support: Washington enjoyed empathy and credibility in spades.
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) was not seen as a US-led war but as one against a medieval ideology that used jihadi terror as an instrument…