Bin Laden Diplomacy

OBL has resurfaced with another audiotape directed at the American people. You can read excerpts from the TimesUK transcript here. For the full story from the TimesUK go here and for the NYTs story click here.

Right now, the only thing I can add is how peculiar it is that OBL dangles a "truce" before the U.S. and it's connected to rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder if this isn't a PR stunt by OBL to show the Muslim community al-Qaeda cares for the Iraqi and Afghan people, even if the most spectacular attacks that primarily kill innocent civilians have come from al-Qaeda's Zarqawi in Iraq.

Also, let's not forget this new audiotape was aired one week after the January 13th strike in Pakistan that allegedly killed four high-ranking members of al-Qaeda's leadership. This is al-Qaeda's attempt to communicate the organization and the ideology is prospering despite the U.S.'s best efforts to defeat both of them and that more attacks are coming our way. I have no doubt al-Qaeda will strike on American soil again, but I also think we are winning this war against Islamic fanaticism. Whether or not we can all but bury it depends upon what happens in Iraq. Something OBL must understand. If not, he wouldn't concentrate on Iraqi reconstruction and American public opinion favoring withdrawal from Iraq.

Iraq is the keystone state in the Middle East. Bin Laden gets it, so should we.