AUSTIN BAY, who has repeatedly opined that a major part of the Bush Administration’s strategy involves using a drawn-out threat of war as a means of smoking out Al Qaeda cells, emails this link to a story supporting his thesis. Excerpt:

“We have seen a surge in communications and other activity that seems to be driven by the situation in Iraq,” the official said. “The information we have leads us to believe that there are plans for terrorist attacks soon after any military operation starts in Iraq.” . . .

“It’s logical to assume that al-Qaida would try to attack American interests after the U.S. starts a military operation in Iraq,” said Diaa Rashwan, a senior researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “Bin Laden would want to show the Arab masses that he’s defending Iraq, while Arab leaders are allowing the Americans to use their bases.”

I think that he may be onto something here, though I suspect that the Administration regards this as a bonus effect of delay that results from other factors, rather than as a reason for drawn-out saber-rattling all by itself. Here’s another interesting tidbit from the same article:

Intelligence agencies have known for years that terrorists use anonymous e-mail accounts to communicate. But officials recently discovered a new twist, where two or more operatives have access to the same Hotmail or Yahoo account. One of them writes a message and doesn’t send it anywhere. Later, another person logs into the same account and reads that message. This way, the message is never sent and cannot be intercepted or traced.

So much for Carnivore, I guess.