That's far from the truth. Leaders seem to give them exactly what they want and the terrorists have success beyond anything they could have hoped for. At the rationalist boot camp we had some fun calculating the amount of economic damage caused by one attempted act of terrorism with a shoe bomb that failed.

By "political goals" I meant things like "remove American soldiers from Saudi Arabia" not "divert American effort towards protection," as we were originally discussing independence efforts rather than destructive efforts. I agree with you that terrorism is very effective at getting people to spend money on defense. What I am looking for, and do not see, is many terrorist groups that make the transition from oppressed minority to political leadership. The Tamil Tigers were crushed after 9/11 made funding terrorism passe, the IRA managed to get a truce with Britain but then turned on itself in a civil war. Palestine doesn't seem much of a success story, given the dominance of Israel.

To the best of my knowledge, no contemporary group has tried the Ismaili strategy you advocate. I don't know enough to say why.