Did Everything Change?

Continued from page 1

By Richard Muller

September 16, 2002

There is another way that the world has changed. Terrorist groups around the globe can no longer plausibly dismiss the United States as a gutless tiger with no claws who retreats at the first sign of body bags. I think that is good. The high tech weapons that we had been developing for decades finally behaved roughly as advertised. It is possible that we could we have handled Afghanistan better, but it is hard to dispute that our image as a coward has vanished. Did hatred of the U.S. increase because of our actions? It is hard to tell from my viewpoint in Berkeley. But most of the Muslim world is moderate, and I believe that it is watching the liberation of women in Afghanistan with the same joy as you and me.

Osama bin Laden failed. What had he hoped to achieve? Let me give you my best guess.

Prior to September 11, bin Laden had fought alongside the Afghan freedom fighters and had helped defeat the Soviet Union. That had given him the reputation of a giant killer, a miracle worker. He expected the U.S. to respond to the attack with an invasion of Afghanistan (he was right). He believed that the Taliban would refuse to turn him over (again, he was right). As soon as our first troops landed (to capture him in an expedition similar to the raid we attempted in Somalia in 1993), he expected the entire Muslim world to rise in outrage. First would be Pakistan, entering the war on the side of their friends the Taliban (he was wrong). Next, Iran. As the U.S. became trapped, perhaps even Iraq would join the alliance against the U.S.

The U.S. would be surrounded, bloodied and strangled, and soon would withdraw in shame, as we had in Somalia and in Lebanon. The mood among American citizens would be clear: never again shall we commit troops to the Middle East. With the U.S. unwilling to intervene, bin Laden expected to be able to walk into Saudi Arabia and take over, amidst the cheers of all Arabs, and to be recognized as the Mahdi, the prophesied Muslim messiah.

Instead, the Taliban have been defeated and ousted. Al Qaeda is in disarray. Afghanistan is a new friend of the U.S. The "second wave" of terrorism never came (unless you believe, as I do, that the anthrax attack was a failed second wave-see "Al Qaeda's Anthrax"). Bin Laden himself was likely killed in Tora Bora. And now the U.S. is going after Saddam. (My guess: with an assassination attack rather than a massive invasion; see "Springtime, Taxes, and the Attack on Iraq.") It is hard to conceive of a worse outcome for al Qaeda.

For many of us, those with no close friends or relatives among the 3,000 killed, the change in our lives consists of occasional ruminations and delays at airports. Many of us read and learned more about Islam, and that is a small but important change for the better. Are Americans more cautious now?  Yes, we'll say, if asked, but it's a perfunctory answer. In fact, we are already taking the trips we had postponed. We've mostly forgotten. It is truly remarkable how little our lives have changed. But don't despair over this fact. We have a truly robust country, and it takes more than a few acts of violence to bring us down. We can take pride in the fact that we weren't changed.

Al Qaeda created tragedy, but that was not its goal. They wanted to create terror. They failed badly.