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The intelligence community directors' testimony on the imminent danger of an al Qaeda attack is only the latest depressing news in what has been a bad year for counterterrorism. The Fort Hood shootings, the near-miss airplane bombing on Christmas Day, the radicalization of parts of the Somali-American community, and other disturbing events all suggest that the threat to the U.S. homeland is growing steadily worse.

Although groups like al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula are rightly claiming the attention of U.S. intelligence officials, Pakistan remains the locus of the problem, and any solutions have to begin there. In the last five years the al Qaeda core has reconstituted itself in Pakistan, using it as a base to rebuild its forces and plan terrorist attacks. Drone strikes on...