The Breaker Of The Clocks
The new tape by Bin Laden cries out for discussion. I generally agree with the assessment of Steve Walt, among others, that it is a sign of Bin Laden’s desperation for relevance to be urging us to read Walt/Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter. It is indeed puzzling that he’s taken so many cues in his recent tapes from the apparent advice of his American courtier Adam Gadahn.
We do well to reflect, however, on how we got here. Osama bin Laden, very simply, has been the greatest military genius since Napoleon. No one dare say that it was he – not Reagan, not Gorbachev – who ended the Cold War. He will not merely be remembered as the slayer of both the Soviet and American empires, but as the one who, in Murray Rothbard’s phrase, broke both the clock of bolshevism and the clock of menshevism and thus repealed the 20th century.
Like Napoleon, however, Bin Laden’s victories will only serve to indispensably empower his greatest enemies – for Napoleon, the European old order, and for Bin Laden, the Shi’ites. It could be that he knows this, and is desperate to try to regain the momentum by using the same brilliant reverse psychology he used to help get Bush re-elected in 2004 with respect to the turn in America over Israel. But really, the damage has already been done, and if anything, Bin Laden is a victim of his own success.
All praise is due to Allah for the breaker of the clocks.
“Osama bin Laden, very simply, has been the greatest military genius since Napoleon. No one dare say that it was he – not Reagan, not Gorbachev – who ended the Cold War.”
You’re post has a lot of salience but can you really believe that bib Laden defeated the soviets in Afghanistan? His efforts were real but hardly crucial. If he were on Napoleon’s level, he would either be the caliph of some Muslim state, or else living at our expense in Bermuda.
As to Walt and Mearsheimer, they have my profound sympathy. From now on they will be attacked by the usual suspects as bin Laden’s favorite authors. For them, it must be like writing a cook book and having it favorably reviewed by a cannibal on death row.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack. The “Afghan Arabs”, which OBL & his group fell under, were a trivial portion of the Afghan resistance. Actual Afghans didn’t think much of them, nor did the ISI and CIA. Actual Afghanis drove out the Soviets. Though I exaggerate a bit, this is like trying to claim Hitler played some pivotal role in the first world war.