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Osama, of course, was that Arab. He had the gold, and he had the support of many of the Arabs.

But Israel wasn't the enemy, at least not the primary one. He chose the USA, because he deemed it the influence that needed to be removed, much like the Ottoman Empire.

Bin Laden's desire, and even expectation, was that he could unite all the arabs, and perhaps all of Islam, against the USA. He hoped to provoke a Jihad against the West and drive it out of the Islamic world.

But he underestimated us and he certainly underestimated our President. We are not the Ottoman Empire, and Osama is no Lawrence of Arabia. Had we not responded in the fashion in which we did, it's possible that Osama could have succeeded. I'm not sure. Instead, he's either on the run or his corpse is rotting in some collapsed cave in Afghanistan and his followers are being tracked and hunted down.

Will another leader arise? It's certainly possible. The conditions that created an Osama bin Laden are still in place. But the world has taken note of what happened to terrorists and their accomplices in the former Taliban government.

The fate of the world hung in the balance immediately following September 11, but the outcome now is shifting in our favor and against those who would challenge us.

You have missed it about the Ottoman Empire.

Osama Bin Laden is not in the least an Arab nationalist. In his first tape he viewed the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW1 as a Western "aggression" against Islam. It concerns him more to have a Sunni core state than to have independent Arab states and since 1918 there has been no core state.

This is pre-1648 thinking. Just as the Holy Roman Empire saw itself as the Counter-Reformed Church's enforcer against heresy. just as Imperial Russia saw itself the protector of Orthodox Christians everywhere, so Osama wants a restored Caliphate to be he enforcer and protector for Muslims everywhere.

It is true that the momentum has swung in our direction. Has America's response been weak millions across the Muslim world would have flocked to the banner of someone who defied America and got away with it. India and Pakistan would almost certainly be at war today. A fantastic way to take the steam out of a radical cause is to kill a lot of fire eaters. We annihilated the militaristic far right as a major political force in Europe and Japan and we can do likewise to Islamism.