President Barack Obama's inauguration increases the likelihood of a major terrorist attack in the US. That was the stark message of the South Waziristan Institute for Strategic Hermeneutics (Swish), a think-tank that offers strategic advice to some of the leading players in global politics.
Swish warned in its mid-December report to Mr Obama's transition team that al-Qaeda 'will attempt a 9/11-level attack, probably within the United States, at some point between now and mid-2010. If and when that happens, your country will require exceptional levels of political leadership if you are to avoid yet another misguided military response.'
Unfortunately, the institute only exists in the fertile brain of British academic and strategic analyst Paul Rogers, who publishes its reports on the website of Open Democracy.
The Swish phenomenon began as an attempt to educate western analysts in the thinking of their Islamist enemies. The reports mimicked the format used by the think-tanks that advise the US government and the Pentagon, but came from the mythical South Waziristan Institute, supposedly also hired by al-Qaeda.
The Swish reports, however, were based more deeply in reality than most of what passed for political analysis in Washington over the past eight years. Professor Rogers assumed (correctly) al-Qaeda leaders were intelligent and had coherent long-term strategies.
In particular, he assumed that a primary purpose of the September 11 attacks was to lure the US into invading Afghanistan (and other Muslim countries), as that would radicalise Muslim populations and generate waves of recruits. Once George W. Bush did that, he was al-Qaeda's man, and its main interest was keeping him in power.