Can anything stop radicals' violence?

They've strapped on bombs and commandeered mules to strike their targets. On Tuesday, they graduated to fuel-laden jumbo jets. When a suicide attacker's goal is to inflict horror and force America into retreat, is there any room for negotiation or compromise?

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The short answer, academic specialists say, is no. The United States probably will see more examples of radical-inspired violence regardless of the military action undertaken in the coming days or weeks, they say.

Thousands of people across more than 30 countries could be prepared to offer their lives in the same way the hijackers of four commercial airliners did this week, said Clark Staten, executive director of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute.

Reports from Washington on Thursday indicated that the primary suspect is al-Qaida, the Afghanistan-based radical group funded by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden.

"If Bin Laden were to die tomorrow, the war would continue. There are no silver bullets here," Mr. Staten said. "It's going to be a constant, ongoing, grinding battle.

"This is the new warfare of the 21st century."

Dr. Marius Deeb, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, agreed that such groups probably will not be swayed from their goals by U.S. military strikes.

"The distinction in the militant's mind is very important: Who is the infidel and who is not," he said. "To them, anything which is harmful to the United States is good."

Because they believe they are in a fight against evil, Dr. Deeb said, negotiation and compromise in their minds are not options.

He and other specialists note a common thread in the attacks against U.S. interests at home and abroad in the last 20 years, ranging from the 1983 bombings that killed hundreds of Americans in Beirut to the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 and Tuesday's attacks in New York and Washington.

Various radical nations such as Iran and Sudan  as well as groups such as al-Qaida, Hezbollah in Beirut and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza  have stated that they want the United States to forever end its presence in the Middle East.

Better yet, they have said, the world would be a better place if the United States ceased to exist altogether. They view the United States as a "great Satan" that must be fought to the death, Dr. Deeb said.

The only way to defeat such an enemy, he said, is with a wide-scale military campaign, including use of American ground forces on a massive scale. Other Mideast and terrorism experts say the world is witnessing a clash of cultures that cannot be reconciled unless a common ground is reached between the Muslim world and the West.

"Money won't help, and beating them over the head won't help," said William O. Beeman, a Brown University anthropologist and Middle East specialist.

To treat the root problem, many Arabs and Muslims believe, the United States would have to reverse decades of policy decisions that have propped up corrupt regimes, defiled Muslim holy places and blindly supported Israel.

"Until this central cancerous problem is treated, Americans will never be free from fear," he said.

In a 1998 interview with ABC News, Mr. Bin Laden explained that his group's goal, for starters, is the total withdrawal of the United States from the Middle East. Al-Qaida's actions, he said, are responses to the military campaigns and attacks launched by the United States around the Middle East during the last two decades.

Mr. Bin Laden said that there is no room for negotiation and that the United States must leave the Middle East unconditionally. Until it does, all Americans, including children, will be potential targets for indiscriminate attack, he told ABC News. The killings of Palestinian and Iraqi women and children by U.S. troops, and by Israelis using American-made weaponry, justified similar attacks on American civilians, Mr. Bin Laden said.

"All of this was done in the name of American interests. We believe that the biggest thieves in the world and the terrorists are the Americans. The only way for us to fend off these assaults is to use similar means," he said.

Mr. Bin Laden and others have found that the suicide-attack is effective and successful.

One of the earliest examples is the 1983 suicide truck bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemen in Beirut. Within five months of that bombing, the United States withdrew its 2,500-troop military mission to Lebanon. It hasn't been back.

Suicide attackers also waged a lengthy campaign against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, going so far as to ride atop mules and bicycles to explode bombs strapped to their chests. As the attacks escalated, Israel, too, withdrew from Lebanon. That marked the first time in Israeli history that it had ceded occupied territory under military duress.

Iran also proved particularly effective in waging massive "human wave" attacks against Iraq during its 1980-88 war. Children were convinced that they could reach paradise by running across battlefields to explode land mines or help shield other Iranian troops. Each wore a key around his neck, the key to heaven.

In both the Iranian and Lebanese cases, the suicide attackers were Shiite Muslims whose faith is believed by some adherents to emphasize martyrdom in the service of God. Other Shiites say their religion forbids suicide under any circumstances.

"Is it suicide, or is it dying in the midst of battle? If the death in battle is against an evil power that is corrupting your society, then they see it as a good thing to sacrifice your life," said Dr. Beeman of Brown University.

The phenomenon also appears to be spreading, even among non-Shiite Muslims. Non-Shiite Palestinian groups are increasingly adopting suicide attacks as a way of inflicting pain and terror on Israelis. In Yemen last year, a suicide bomber blew a gaping hole in the guided-missile cruiser USS Cole, killing 17 American service personnel.

The lesson for America's enemies, experts say, is that unconventional warfare can bring success where conventional military campaigns have failed. Thus, there is a built-in motive to continue.

"You cannot talk to them," said Dr. Deeb of Johns Hopkins. "They have created this division between the bad and the good. Even if we are nice to them, even if we talk to them, we are not going to silence them.

"We are not going to stop them."