The reality is more surely this, in effect, in a world without counterweight, physically destabilized and thus dangerous, failure of multipolar equilibrium. And America, in the solitude of her power, of her super-power, in the absence from that point of any Soviet-style antagonist, has ceased to hold the people to her; or more precisely, in some parts of the globe, she seems no longer to attract hate. In a world regulated by the Cold War where terrorism was more or less aided by Moscow, one form of control was always available; and the dialogue between Moscow and Washington was never interrupted. In the monopolistic world of today, it's a new barbarism, apparently without control, which seems to want to make itself the counterweight (to the USA). And perhaps we have ourselves in Europe, from the Gulf War to the use of F16s by the Israeli Defense Force against the Palestinians, underestimated the intensity of hate which, from the suburbs of Jakarta to those of Durban, in passing by the rejoicing crowds of Naplouse (the West Bank?) and Cairo, have been concentrated against the US.
But the reality is perhaps also one in which America is trapped by its own cynicism: if bin Laden is indeed, as the American authorities seem to think, the organizer of the September 11th attacks, how can we not remember that bin Laden himself was created by the CIA, that he was one of the elements of a policy, turned against the Soviets, that Americans knowingly believed in. Would it not then be America which gave birth to this devil?