Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of " United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists ." For more analysis of the jihadist threat today read this paper by Peter Bergen.

(CNN) Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.

The Japanese scored an important victory at Pearl Harbor, but the attack pulled the United States into World War II and four years later Japan was in ruins, utterly defeated.

Similarly, al Qaeda's attacks coming out of the azure-blue sky 15 years ago, on Tuesday morning September 11, 2001, were a great shock to Americans and, indeed, to much of the world: Almost 3,000 dead; many hundreds of billions of dollars of damage to the US economy, and the shock of the world's only superpower being taken on by a relatively small terrorist group, al Qaeda. Not since the British had burned down the White House in 1814 almost two centuries earlier had America's enemies succeeded in attacking the continental United States.

For so long the two great oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific had protected America from its enemies, but no more.

People in New York gather for a candlelight vigil a day after the attacks.

People in New York gather for a candlelight vigil a day after the attacks.

Bush prepares to address the nation on the evening of September 11. "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America," he said in his remarks. "These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

Bush prepares to address the nation on the evening of September 11. "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America," he said in his remarks. "These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

Remains of the World Trade Center are seen amid the debris.

Remains of the World Trade Center are seen amid the debris.

Marcy Borders stands covered in dust as she takes refuge in an office building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Borders, who became known as "Dust Lady," died of stomach cancer in 2015. She was 42.

Members of Congress gather on the east steps of Capitol Hill and sing "God Bless America" to denounce the terrorist attacks.

Members of Congress gather on the east steps of Capitol Hill and sing "God Bless America" to denounce the terrorist attacks.

New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh is carried after his leg was shattered by falling debris.

New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh is carried after his leg was shattered by falling debris.

The north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 10:28 a.m. The time between the first attack and the collapse of both towers was 102 minutes.

The north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 10:28 a.m. The time between the first attack and the collapse of both towers was 102 minutes.

Bush speaks to Cheney aboard Air Force One after departing Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. He had flown to Nebraska temporarily for security reasons.

Bush speaks to Cheney aboard Air Force One after departing Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. He had flown to Nebraska temporarily for security reasons.

Military vehicles travel along the road leading to the crash site of Flight 93.

Military vehicles travel along the road leading to the crash site of Flight 93.

At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 — traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco — crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It is believed that the hijackers crashed the plane in that location, rather than their unknown target, after the passengers and crew tried to retake control of the flight deck.

At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 — traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco — crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It is believed that the hijackers crashed the plane in that location, rather than their unknown target, after the passengers and crew tried to retake control of the flight deck.

Two men take cover as a dust cloud from the collapsed building envelops lower Manhattan.

Two men take cover as a dust cloud from the collapsed building envelops lower Manhattan.

The south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9:59 a.m.

The south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9:59 a.m.

Firefighters try to control the flames at the Pentagon.

Firefighters try to control the flames at the Pentagon.

Surveillance video from a Pentagon security camera shows a fireball rising from the southwestern side of the building after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into it at 9:37 a.m. The flight had taken off from Dulles, Virginia, en route to Los Angeles.

Surveillance video from a Pentagon security camera shows a fireball rising from the southwestern side of the building after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into it at 9:37 a.m. The flight had taken off from Dulles, Virginia, en route to Los Angeles.

Pedestrians look across the East River to the burning towers.

Pedestrians look across the East River to the burning towers.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispers into the ear of US President George W. Bush as Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida. "America is under attack," he said.

People in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral react with horror as they look down Fifth Avenue toward the World Trade Center site.

People in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral react with horror as they look down Fifth Avenue toward the World Trade Center site.

Seventeen minutes after the north tower was struck, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center. That plane also flew out of Boston en route to Los Angeles.

Seventeen minutes after the north tower was struck, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center. That plane also flew out of Boston en route to Los Angeles.

A man falls from one of the World Trade Center towers. The publication of this photo, taken by Richard Drew, led to a public outcry from people who found it insensitive. Drew sees it differently. On the 10th anniversary of the attacks, he said he considers the falling man an "unknown soldier" who he hopes "represents everyone who had that same fate that day." It's believed that upwards of 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths after the planes hit the towers.

Fire and smoke are seen from the north tower.

Fire and smoke are seen from the north tower.

People in New York look up as the World Trade Center burns.

People in New York look up as the World Trade Center burns.

In this image taken from video, American Airlines Flight 11 is seen seconds before crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. ET. It was the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. Flight 11 took off from Boston and was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles.

In this image taken from video, American Airlines Flight 11 is seen seconds before crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. ET. It was the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. Flight 11 took off from Boston and was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles.

Thick smoke rises over the New York City skyline after the World Trade Center towers were downed by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Thick smoke rises over the New York City skyline after the World Trade Center towers were downed by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Yet, for all their tactical success the 9/11 attacks failed strategically and, in the end, achieved precisely the opposite of what Osama bin Laden had intended.

There are, of course, differences between the post-World War II era and the post 9/11 era. The long-term aftermath of Pearl Harbor was not only a decisive Allied victory in the war but also decades of American leadership and dominance.

After its initial success in Afghanistan following 9/11, victory was not decisive for the United States. Instead, American forces continued to be at war with a number of shadowy jihadist groups, most recently ISIS, and this now seems like a quasi-permanent state of affairs that could persist well beyond the next presidency.

When Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force immediately after the 9/11 attacks, no one could have imagined this authorization would continue to be the basis for American wars that persist a decade and a half later.

Bin Laden's hope

Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers.

In particular, bin Laden wanted to put pressure on the United States to pull its troops out of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, bin Laden's principal political goal was to overthrow the Saudi royal family.

On a video that was released four weeks after 9/11, bin Laden made his first public statement since the attacks on New York and Washington, saying "neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live it in Palestine, and not before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad [Saudi Arabia]."

The video was poorly timed, as it came out on October 7, 2001, the same day the United States began its air campaign against Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.

Two months later the Taliban was completely routed from Afghanistan and within another couple of weeks those key members of al Qaeda who had survived the intense American airstrikes were fleeing to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

Gambling on weakness

Bin Laden disastrously misjudged the likely American response to the 9/11 attacks because he labored under the delusion that the United States was weak. In his first television interview on CNN in 1997, bin Laden claimed the United States was a paper tiger, pointing to the American withdrawals from Vietnam in the early 1970s, Lebanon in the early 1980s and from Somalia in 1993 as evidence of the United States' waning power. Bin Laden told CNN, "The US still thinks and brags that it has this kind of power even after all these successive defeats in Vietnam, Beirut ... and Somalia."

Bizarrely, bin Laden believed that al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington would result in an American withdrawal from the Middle East. Instead, the United States quickly toppled the Taliban and al Qaeda -- "the base" in Arabic -- lost the best base it had ever had in Afghanistan.

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In the years after the 9/11 attacks the United States not only did not reduce its influence in the Middle East, but it also established or added to massive bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. And, of course, it also occupied both Afghanistan and Iraq. Bin Laden's tactical victory on 9/11 turned out to be a spectacular strategic flop.

Since 9/11 the CIA has eliminated many dozens of al Qaeda's leaders in drone strikes. The CIA also provided the leads that eventually led to the death of bin Laden, when US Navy SEALs raided his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Meanwhile, al Qaeda has not been able to strike the United States again after 9/11.

A letter written by an al Qaeda member nine months after 9/11 that was addressed to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander of the September 11 attacks, gives a sense of how much the attacks had backfired : "Consider all the fatal and successive disasters that have afflicted us during a period of no more than six months. ... Today we are experiencing one setback after another and have gone from misfortune to disaster."

Strategic disaster

In 2004 Abu Musab al Suri, a Syrian jihadist who had known bin Laden since the late 1980s, released on the Internet a history of the jihadist movement in which he described the strategic disaster that had engulfed the Taliban and al Qaeda after 9/11: "America destroyed the Islamic Emirate [of the Taliban] in Afghanistan, which had become the refuge for the mujahideen. ...The jihad movement rose to glory in the 1960s, and continued through the '70s and '80s, and resulted in the rise of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, but it was destroyed after 9/11."

Despite the fact that after 9/11 it was obvious to al Qaeda insiders that their organization had taken a terrible beating, Saif al-Adel, one of the group's military commanders, explained in a 2005 interview that the strikes on New York and Washington were, in fact, a devilishly clever scheme to provoke the United States into making mistakes: "Such strikes will force the person to carry out random acts and provoke him to make serious and sometimes fatal mistakes. ...The first reaction was the invasion of Afghanistan."

Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Osama bin Laden holds a Kalashnikov rifle in Tora Bora, a mountainous area of Afghanistan, in November 1996. This remarkable set of photos -- the first showing bin Laden in the remote hideout where he would seek refuge after 9/11 -- came to light only last month in the terrorism conspiracy trial of bin Laden lieutenant Khaled al-Fawwaz. Al-Fawwaz was a communications conduit for al Qaeda in London during the mid-1990s. Hide Caption 1 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden first went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to participate in the war against the Soviet Union. He co-founded al Qaeda with fighters from that conflict. Hide Caption 2 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden is seen inside his Tora Bora hideout, about to record an address.​ Starting in 1996, when he issued his first fatwa, or religious decree, to kill Americans, bin Laden began granting interviews to reporters to publicize his grievances against the United States and its allies. Hide Caption 3 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout When issuing pronouncements, bin Laden often sat in front of shelves of Islamic books to convey an intellectual image. Hide Caption 4 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden sits in front of his bookshelves inside his Tora Bora hideout. His three wives and more than a dozen children struggled with the sparse amenities. The only heat came from a wood-burning stove. Hide Caption 5 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden, a Saudi exile, took al Qaeda to Sudan for four years in the 1990s before returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 1996. Hide Caption 6 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout At Tora Bora, bin Laden was surrounded by bodyguards, loyal followers and family members. Hide Caption 7 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout In May 1996, bin Laden settled in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. His mountain fortress in Tora Bora was a long drive up a dirt road he had built. Hide Caption 8 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout In 1998, less than two years after this photo was taken, bin Laden followers bombed U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people and injuring around 4,000. Hide Caption 9 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout The journey from Jalalabad to Tora Bora was a perilous and bumpy ride past armed checkpoints. In al Qaeda's vehicle of choice -- a Toyota pickup truck -- it was a three-hour trip. Hide Caption 10 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout The exterior of bin Laden's hideaway was made of mud and stone. Hide Caption 11 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout A secret passageway is seen at Tora Bora. Bin Laden told his sons that they must know their way out of the mountains in case of war. Hide Caption 12 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout A young man stands outside the house. Hide Caption 13 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout ​In Tora Bora, the living conditions were medieval. The only light at night was from the moon and gas lanterns. Hide Caption 14 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden had a two-bedroom house at Tora Bora. Hide Caption 15 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Hunger was a frequent companion to the bin Laden children, who lived on a diet of rice, bread, eggs and salty cheese. Hide Caption 16 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout In addition to bin Laden's wives and children, dozens of al Qaeda fighters also spent time with bin Laden in the mountainous retreat. Hide Caption 17 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden laughs during a walk. Hide Caption 18 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Abdel Barri Atwan, a Palestinian journalist whose 1996 journey to Afghanistan yielded these photos, said bin Laden told him he hated Americans and American policies and troop deployments in the Middle East. Hide Caption 19 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout The Tora Bora settlement and cave complex was above the snow line in winter. Hide Caption 20 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden discovered Tora Bora during the anti-Soviet war in the 1980s. Hide Caption 21 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout A view of the lake outside Tora Bora. Hide Caption 22 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Syrian-born ideologue Abu Musab al-Suri was an ally in jihad with bin Laden who once ran training camps inside Afghanistan. Hide Caption 23 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout From left, inside bin Laden's cave, are al-Suri, bin Laden and British documentary maker Gwynne Roberts. Hide Caption 24 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Al-Suri was a bin Laden supporter in the 1990s​ who later became a critic of al Qaeda's hierarchical and bureaucratic structure. Hide Caption 25 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Al-Suri advocated a "leaderless jihad" with "spontaneous operations" performed by unconnected individuals and cells all over the world. Hide Caption 26 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Al-Suri, seen here taking photos, published "The Call for Global Islamic Resistance" on the Internet in 2004, saying there need not be any organizational bonds between "resistance fighters." Hide Caption 27 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout More than 200 al Qaeda fighters were killed in the December 2001 battle of Tora Bora, and more than 50 were captured. Bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped. Hide Caption 28 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Al-Suri, left, with Atwan. Atwan was the founding editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an independent Arabic weekly published in London that had been critical of certain Arab regimes and the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He nabbed the first interview in Afghanistan with bin Laden on this 1996 trip. Hide Caption 29 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden took journalist Atwan on a two-hour hike around Tora Bora. "He loved that nature there. He loved the mountain. They were trying to have their own community, grow their foods," Atwan recalled. Al-Suri was arrested in Pakistan in 2005 and sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned. Hide Caption 30 of 31 Photos: Osama bin Laden's Afghan hideout Bin Laden hikes alone at the base of a mountain. As U.S. troops closed in on Tora Bora in late 2001, bin Laden escaped. A decade later, U.S. Navy SEALs killed him at his next hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Hide Caption 31 of 31

There is no evidence, however, that before 9/11 al Qaeda's leaders made any plans for an American invasion of Afghanistan. They prepared instead only for possible US cruise missile attacks by evacuating their training camps.

Of course, making spectacular errors during a war is a prerogative that all sides enjoy. George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in early 2003 will surely rank as one of the greatest foreign policy failures in American history and it's hard to imagine that this misadventure could ever have been undertaken at any time other than in the aftermath of 9/11, when the American public was amenable to what the Bush administration was selling as a quick land war in the Middle East that would help curtail terrorism.

The rationales for the Iraq War that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he was allied in some manner with al Qaeda were, of course total nonsense.

Rise of ISIS

Worse, the invasion itself led to the creation of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, which is the parent organization of what is now ISIS.

When ISIS first gained significant ground in Iraq and Syria in 2014, it focused almost entirely on its actions there and encouraged its overseas followers to join the jihad in the Middle East.

In 2015, ISIS shifted its strategy, attacking on a large scale outside Iraq and Syria. The group claimed responsibility for the downing of the Russian Metrojet carrying 224 passengers and crew on October 31 in the Sinai in Egypt. Two weeks after the Metrojet bombing, a team of ISIS militants attacked multiple locations in Paris.

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This marked a pronounced shift by ISIS to directing or inciting operations against the West, but it also underlined ISIS' incoherent strategy.

ISIS' main goal is to present itself as the Islamic State that it has named itself, the guardian of an expansive caliphate that is both a theological and a geographic entity. But by attacking Western targets ISIS has united a global coalition against it, which is in the process of thoroughly dismantling the ISIS caliphate.

After ISIS attacked France in November 2015, the French immediately increased their airstrikes on ISIS targets.

Following ISIS' attacks at Istanbul airport in June 2016, the Turkish army attacked ISIS targets inside Syria, quickly taking the city of Jarablus.

ISIS' attacks inside Turkey also resulted in a Turkish clampdown on the flow of many thousands of ISIS "foreign fighters," almost all of whom transited Turkey on the way to join the group in Syria.

ISIS should have understood that provocative attacks against Western targets would only amplify the war against it. As early as summer 2014, following the murder by ISIS of the American journalist James Foley, the United States substantially increased the number of airstrikes against the group and mobilized a coalition of like-minded nations to join the anti-ISIS coalition.

According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), nations that have conducted strikes against ISIS -- in addition to the United States -- are: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

ISIS' terrorist attacks in the West are undermining its overall strategy, which is reminiscent of the mistake al Qaeda made on 9/11, which was to confuse tactical success with strategic victory.

Indeed, according to both Gen. David Petraeus, former US commanding general in Iraq, and Gen Joseph Votel, the commander of CENTCOM, it's quite possible that Mosul, which is the key city that ISIS holds in Iraq, may fall to Iraqi forces by the end of President Barack Obama's term in January 2017.

From a purely American perspective, by the time Obama was nearing the end of his second term, the threat from al Qaeda, ISIS and similar groups had receded significantly from its high point on 9/11.

In the past decade and a half since 9/11, 94 Americans have been killed in the United States by jihadist terrorists. Shocking and tragic as these attacks have been, they still pale in comparison to al Qaeda's murder of almost 3,000 people on the morning of 9/11.