UPDATING THE WAR ON TERROR: Civilization is starting to run up the score, according to the Chicago Tribune:

International terrorist attacks dropped significantly in 2002, and Bush administration officials are increasingly confident that the deadliest Al Qaeda plotters are now on the defensive, a top U.S. counterterrorism expert said Wednesday....

The State Department report, issued on the same day that Pakistani officials said they had arrested six major Al Qaeda operatives, said there were 199 terrorist attacks worldwide last year, a decline of 44 percent from the 355 attacks recorded in 2001. Attacks directed at the United States or U.S. targets dropped to 77 from 219.

Measured in terms of loss of life, 725 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2002, a significant decline from the 3,295 who perished in 2001--a figure swelled by the nearly 3,000 deaths in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

There was additional good news -- the planner of the USS Cole bombing was captured in Pakistan.

Here's the introduction to the State Department report. It turns out that multilateral diplomacy is useful for something (I'm not being sarcastic):

The progress that has been achieved in the global war on terrorism would not have been possible without intense diplomatic engagement throughout the world. Diplomacy is the backbone of the campaign, building the political will, support, and mechanisms that enable our law-enforcement, intelligence, and military communities to act effectively.

The web of relationships we have cultivated has borne fruit in countless ways, from increasing security at home and abroad to bringing wanted terrorists to justice in the United States and elsewhere.

All our friends have stood with us multilaterally—at the United Nations, in NATO, ANZUS, EU, G-7, G-8, OAS, ASEAN, APEC, OIC, OECD, OSCE—and bilaterally in virtually every corner of the world.

New counterterrorism relationships with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Central Asian republics, and others have shown results and hold promise for continued engagement in the future. Collaboration in combating terrorism has deepened with partners such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The report also provides an interesting graph demonstrating that, beginning in the late eighties, there has been a secular decrease in the number of terrorist attacks. In fact, the number of attacks has fallen by more than two-thirds from 1987.

So is the Bush administration just riding the wave? No. If you look at the graph closely, there was an unambiguous spike in attacks at the end of the 1990's. The Bush administration can and should take credit for arresting that worrisome increase.