The core issue that many people are asking themselves in the wake of the fifth anniversary of 9/11 is whether we are living in a safer and more secure world or not.

While Bin Laden and Zawahri are still allegedly at large, and there has been an abominable failure to create enduring security in Afghanistan and Iraq, there are both accomplishments that one can speak of, as well as definite negatives that one simply cannot afford to gloss over.

Perhaps the biggest positive from an American perspective is that there have been no subsequent catastrophic attacks on American territory since then.

Almost of equal importance is the fact that the al Qaeda leadership has been virtually dissolved, if not completely eliminated.

At an intelligence level, never has international intelligence cooperation been forged with such strong links.

The constraint on terrorist financing is also a plus factor.

The elevation of democracy promotion on the US foreign policy agenda seemed encouraging at the start but it has only led to the radicalisation of certain countries’ leadership in most instances.

In spite of certain lapses commercial aviation security has been strengthened while the notion of a coordinated homeland security has not only worked on American territory but is also being emulated in other countries too: the point at issue being that there is need for expanded local and state capacity for homeland security operations.

On a purely American front, they have centralised the leadership of their intelligence community, established a National Counter-terrorism Centre for a more focused approach, increased information sharing among such agencies as the CIA and the FBI and also strengthened international cooperation with intelligence and security agencies overseas.

Stronger, more harmonised counter-terrorism laws and practices have taken root globally while initiatives such as the PSI - Proliferation Security Initiative – have been launched. Counter-terrorism cooperation and technical assistance with many countries has been strengthened while on the international front not only have certain black market nuclear networks been identified and incapacitated but WMD programmes have been brought to an end in countries like Libya.

The principle of sovereign accountability for terrorists shows that there is no safe harbour for them anywhere.

Yet, if we want an objective assessment we must also outline the negatives that have emerged over the last five years since 9/11:

• The Jihadist threat has increased and become less containable;

• Autonomous so called “self-starter” cells have risen appreciably;

• Public diplomacy has been undermined by what has been perceived as US unilateralism;

• Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have eroded US moral authority as well as its global image;

• Domestic security paranoia such as visa frustrations and over reaction to the Dubai Ports issue have weakened public diplomacy;

• Democracy and development assistance agendas have been viewed skeptically in many countries;

• Americans I know have criticised the Homeland Security of being more of a “holding company” than an integrated department;

• Serious internal contradictions have marred intelligence reform;

• Too much emphasis seems to be placed on tactical and near-term approaches at the expense of the strategic and the long-term;

• Civil liberties have often been sacrificed at the expense of increased domestic surveillance;

• The failure to slow or end the nuclear weapon and missile programmes in Iran and N Korea contrasts sharply with the positive response won over from the Libyan side;

• Cooperation has often been limited by so called ‘war’ rhetoric;

•The risk of WMD acquisition by terrorists remains unacceptably high.

If you ask me, Iraq has turned out to be an enormous wrong turn in the five years since 9/11. The war was justified at some moments directly by connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, which were grossly overstated if not absolutely false. In plain English, there is no evidence that Saddam had anything at all to do with 9/11.

To my mind, Iraq did not have to be a disaster but it has evidently become so.

If there is one important lesson that we (the world at large) have all learnt since 9/11 about the limits of what military action can accomplish this is that the people who are in key positions continue to learn the wrong lessons which is that air power can destroy deeply entrenched groups that are as much political as they are military.

What worries me too is that there is a huge ideological battle that is not of our making but which is now rampant in the world we live in.

If only we all learnt that war is far too blunt an instrument and that crime and intelligence work are the areas where we have had our few successes as Western countries.

The same way, Hezbollah stole the show in Lebanon by offering to pay for the reconstruction of homes for the tens of thousands of people whose homes had been destroyed in the Israeli bombardment and have thus swept the carpet from under the feet of the Lebanese government, the same has happened in Afghanistan where nothing serious to rebuild the country infrastructurally has been done in recent years.

There is a yawning gap between military adventurism, military involvement and actual rebuilding.

I am equally worried that the battle within Muslim countries, is become more acute and getting hotter all the time. It is true that it has been going on for half a century but never has it risen so sharply as in the last five years.

I feel that the people who could feel most betrayed could be the victims of 9/11 itself – in the sense that if they were still alive they could be the first to complain that somehow justice had not been done.

9/11 burst America’s invincibility image but although Americans might have felt safer since then on their own territory it does not necessarily mean that the US is being perceived as being much stronger externally since then.

Mastery of the terrain is not enough. One also needs mastery of the language, the culture and the mentality. Particularly as far as the Middle East and the Muslim worlds are concerned.

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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and IT