Every April 30, the U.S. State Department is required to present to Congress a report on the state of terrorism and counterterrorism throughout the world in the last year. The release of the 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism last week provides the yearly snapshot of what's going on where. It also frames that information in new ways that have been evolving since the events of 2001 made terrorism a top government priority. These frames--theories and assumptions about what terrorism is and isn't, how people decide to participate in a terrorist act, and what threatens American interests most--are stated so that they sound like irrefutable facts, but actually most are not. They are ideas based on national interests, terrorism scholarship, past experience, and other ideas that are also currently evolving about how social organizations and governments work. They may be true now, but not later, when they are either proven wrong or new versions of non-state violence emerge that we need to understand in a new way. Some may prove to be enduring. This year's claims include:

• Al Qaida is the greatest threat to the United States and its allies
• It is okay to blur the lines defining terrorist, insurgent and criminal group, and group all in terms of terrorism, if they pose a threat to national interest (For example, the Taliban, insurgent groups and criminal gangs are all cited as threats to Afghanistan; links between criminal activity and the FARC in Colombia are also noted.)
• Iran is the most significant state sponsor of terrorism
• Contemporary terrorist groups have the characteristics of a global insurgency
• Terrorists are made through a process of radicalization. Immigrants and the marginalized are often radicalized because terrorist groups exploit and redirect their grievances
• The private sector is an important part of the country's counterterrorism efforts

In addition to deciding for yourself what you think of these claims, you can also see what Coordinator for Counterterrorism Dell L. Dailey and State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack have to say, as they discuss the 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism in this video: