Al-Qaeda's Future

AL-QAEDA'S FUTURE....I saw this chart on a bunch of blogs yesterday and it left me puzzled. It comes from a poll of foreign policy experts, and it made me wonder what the other 49% thought. After all, isn't Pakistan already the next al-Qaeda stronghold?

Today the Center for American Progress posted the full poll results, and I have my answer. Afghanistan gets a few votes, of course, but the other big winners are Somalia, Sudan, and the Palestinian Territories, which collectively get about a quarter of the votes. There's sort of an odd liberal/conservative split, too, with liberals voting mostly for Afghanistan and Somalia and conservatives voting in large numbers for Sudan and the Palestinian Territories. The sample size of the poll is small, so maybe this is just a fluke, but it seems a little weird. Why are liberals afraid of Somalia while conservative are afraid of Sudan?