The United States today does not have so much as an embassy in Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, or Yemen. It demonstrably has little influence over nominal allies such as Pakistan, which has been aiding the Taliban for decades, and Saudi Arabia, which has prolonged the conflict in Yemen. In Iraq, where almost 5,000 U.S. and allied troops have died since 2003, America must endure the spectacle of political leaders flaunting their membership in Iranian-backed groups, some of which the U.S. considers terrorist organizations.

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, with trillions of dollars spent and countless lives lost, U.S. influence has been systematically dismantled across much of the Muslim world, a process abetted by America’s own mistakes. Sadly, much of this was foreseen by the very terrorists who carried out those attacks.

In 2004, al-Qaeda published a treatise titled Management of Savagery. The book codified existing al-Qaeda strategy, breaking it down into three phases, the first of which involved using violence to create adjoining “regions of savagery” where the writ of traditional governments does not extend.

We now see the success of that strategy. It is startling to realize how much of the Muslim world is in the hands of non-state actors. In Libya, armed factions battle for supremacy. Militias backed by Iran hold sway in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen—often fighting against rival Sunni groups, some of them affiliated with al-Qaeda. Somalia shows little sign of emerging from the grip of the local al-Qaeda faction, al-Shabaab. And of course, the Taliban once again controls Afghanistan. Taken together, that makes for an arc of chaos from North Africa to Central Asia.