Why drone strikes are real enemy in 'war on terror'

Editor's note: Fawaz A. Gerges a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics where he directs the Middle East Centre. His most recent book is "The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda."

London (CNN) -- In his highly anticipated counterterrorism speechlast month, U.S. President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged -- for the first time -- the human toll that drone attacks inflict on Muslim civilians.

"It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties," he admitted, adding, "These deaths will haunt us." While he pledged to curtail the use of drone strikes in the future, those words rang hollow when he went on to reaffirm his commitment to the targeted killings because, in his view, any alternative would invite far more civilian casualties.

Obama's drone calculus ignores the CIA's warning about the continuing "possibilities of blowback." Officials in Washington ignore the high-cost ways in which the U.S. "war on terror" and the use of tactics such as drone strikes fuel the fires of home-grown radicalization in Western societies. This is a rising phenomenon that has not been seriously debated, despite a string of high-profile attacks. While trials have yet to take place, the Woolwich attack in London and the Boston Marathon bombings are suspected to be the latest cases in point.

These are a different set of terrorists, in that they radicalized themselves -- enraged by specific grievances, while also having been integrated into life in Western society. Falling under the influence of militant preachers mostly online, they have internalized the kind of religious-political worldview that justified their taking matters into their own hands -- in short, a license to kill.In case after case over the past few years, attackers and would-be attackers have cited the war on terror, first in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere as proof that the West is at war with Islam. The presence of Western boots in Muslim lands and the continuing use of drone strikes have triggered a backlash among scores of deluded young Muslims who live in America and Europe, and who come from different educational and class background, including high achievers. What is surprising is that these attackers are not unified by a core set of ideological beliefs, or a belonging to a particular terrorist group, but by a core set of grievances, real or imagined.