I’m struck watching this Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Clinton, Gates and Mullen how far the Obama administration is going to tie the ability of the al-Qaeda-led “syndicate” (Clinton’s phrase, and one that I think makes sense) to attack the U.S. at home. So I wrote a long post for the Washington Independent on what they’re saying. Gates seems to be more cautious than others, stressing the ability of al-Qaeda senior leadership to export terrorism to Yemen, Somalia and India, rather than specifically at home. And yet today Secretary Napolitano stressed, as did Clinton, the Zazi case as an example of al-Qaeda senior leadership being able to touch us at home.

There is something here. But we need so much more evidence — proof, to be frank — of the directness here. For instance:

How closely was Zazi actually connected to al-Qaeda senior leadership? How anomalous or indicative is his case? What does his arrest represent about U.S. domestic capabilities relative to those of the al-Qaeda “syndicate”? And how much information will the Obama administration release to demonstrate the scope of this threat and these ties, as oppose to asserting them as self-evident?

The threat from al-Qaeda to the U.S. is so much greater than, say, the threat to the U.S. from Iraq ever was. But all that means is that the threat is nonzero. After the experience of the Bush administration so blatantly manipulating intelligence on terrorist “connections,” the Obama administration absolutely cannot be allowed to make this case so loosely and insubstantially. I missed this part of the hearing, but Marcy tells me that Sen. Feingold asked why we’re not sending troops to Somalia, for instance, when indictments have been unsealed about al-Shebaab recruiting in Minnesota. (I would add that al-Shebaab has pledged support to Usama bin Laden, but I think the point stands.)