OSAMA BLOCKBUSTER: WILL IT CHANGE ARAB MINDS?
By Martin Kramer
December 14, 2001

The video released Thursday is overwhelming evidence for the role of Osama bin Laden as mastermind of the terror attacks of September 11. Its effect nearly everywhere will be to persuade viewers that he was responsible for initiating the attacks. And his own words attest that his role went beyond inspiring the perpetrators. Bin Laden claims in the video to have been in regular communication with the operatives themselves. He professes to have known the logistical plan, the timing, and the participants in the hijackings. In the video's most hideous segment, he tells his guests that he was the most "optimistic" of the planners, believing that the planes crashing into the World Trade Center would bring down all the floors above impact.

If by some misfortune, bin Laden is captured and not killed, this video will be prime evidence for the prosecution. Certainly its effect on opinion in the West will be to silence all those who claim that the "war on terror" could be a case of mistaken identity. But what of Arab and Muslim opinion? Some hope has been expressed that the release of the video will impact the so-called "Arab street," which is ritually skeptical of American claims. In many places in the Arab world, doubts have been expressed about bin Laden's role, and in some places elaborate conspiracy theories have flourished, attributing the attacks to just about everyone but Arab hijackers. Will it make a difference to these doubters when bin Laden is overheard openly boasting of his triumph?

The answer depends on the Arabs in question. They fall into three broad categories.

Those Arabs who decided long ago that the Mossad engineered the attacks are beyond the influence of any evidence. They live in a world haunted by dark conspiracies, where hidden hands move everything. To their minds, a fake video would be a perfect tool in the conspiracy against Islam. They will claim that the video has been staged or doctored — that it is black propaganda meant to dupe the Muslims. Certainly there will be many who doubt the video's authenticity. They will assert that a technological superpower would have no difficulty faking the entire scene.

Then there are bin Laden's admirers — those who have celebrated the attacks of September 11. They will welcome the video, since it confirms that bin Laden is not some false idol of their own making, but the authentic author of the blow delivered by Muslim "martyrs" to an arrogant America. Of course, had the video been released a month ago, their joy would have been unmitigated. Now it is mixed with the realization that their "true Islam" also paid a heavy price for September 11: the destruction of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the ideal Islamic regime. They had expected America to suffer yet another blow in Afghanistan. Instead, the Taliban collapsed, many Arab fighters were slaughtered, and bin Laden was put to flight. Perhaps there will even be a few who will see bin Laden on video, and curse him for his own obvious arrogance, and his cocky self-assurance, as though God were guiding his every act.

Between these two extremes, there is a sizeable body of opinion that takes this view: yes, Muslims were responsible for September 11; no, bin Laden had nothing to do with it. In this view, America jumped to a convenient conclusion: It needed to hammer somebody to quench its thirst for revenge, and bin Laden fit the bill. The entire Afghan war, in this view, is a case of mistaken identity. If there were a conspiracy, bin Laden had little to do with it; America simply used him as a pretext for waging a war it had long wanted to wage in Afghanistan.

This argument has rested, in part, on the notion that bin Laden was incapable of mounting such an operation in the first place. A version of this notion, as filtered through American academe, can be found in a statement by Fawaz Gerges, a chaired professor at Sarah Lawrence University, made immediately after the attacks. (Gerges had just returned from two years in the Middle East, where he researched Islamic movements on the dime of the MacArthur Foundation.)

I doubt it very much if Bin Laden is capable now and on his own of masterminding such complex and well-coordinated attacks in the heartland of America and in several U.S. cities. He has been under siege for the last few years. The United States has committed considerable resources to restricting his movements and reach. All his resources are monitored minute by minute. We have an army of agents keeping track of every move of his. Although the Taliban have refused his requests to expel him from Afghanistan, they have restricted his movements and kept him under a tight leash.

(In July 2000, the same Gerges told the Washington Post: "Osama bin Laden is really a spent force. He has little support outside Afghanistan. He is in a state of siege by the U.S. and other intelligence organizations.")

In fact, the United States never claimed to have bin Laden under a "state of siege," or to be capable of "tracking his every move," "minute by minute." This is not the case now, and it was not the case then. But those who did believe this, especially in the Arab world, have refused to accept even the possibility of bin Laden's responsibility for September 11.

If the video has any impact in the Arab and Muslim worlds, it will have it upon these viewers. They will squirm in discomfort on viewing an Osama bin Laden completely at odds with their prior assumptions. Here is a man in command, and a commander in the know, meeting freely with visitors, and boasting openly of his role. He does so without the slightest fear that anyone might be monitoring his words. Here is a man who supposedly refused to allow any electrical equipment in his presence (it might betray his location) gabbing away in front of someone's home video camera. Here is a man who appears absolutely confident that he is safe and secure in Taliban hands — even after September 11. In the famous bin Laden recruitment video, it was clear that he would; in this video, he makes it clear that he could — and did.

Of course, it is always possible that many of these viewers will write off the video as a fake, or assert that despite bin Laden's confession, he could not have done it. Arab journalists and intellectuals are notoriously impervious to evidence. But there are a few who have suspended judgment on the war — pretty much the most one could have hoped for. The video offers them a ladder down from the fence, and provides them with ammunition they can use against their critics.

There is one more aspect worth emphasizing. The Taliban, it will be recalled, professed a willingness to turn over bin Laden, provided the United States gave proof of his responsibility. Yet bin Laden himself, right under their noses and before a large group, boasted of his responsibility. The Taliban must have known this, and probably knew of everything else, quite conceivably in advance. The video is thus an indirect but persuasive indictment of bin Laden's hosts, whose removal from power was a stated American war aim — and one that has already been achieved.

So it is useful to have the video, and it is good that it was released. But the most effective American propaganda was and remains this: victory. So far, the war has done much to restore awe for America in the Arab and Muslim worlds — an awe that had been eroded by years of irresolution. As bin Laden put it in the video: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." America is now the strong horse. Some Arabs and Muslims may not like it, but they do fear it, and that is nearly as good.

Likewise, it's great to have bin Laden indicting himself on film. But it's no substitute for the real flesh-and-blood bin Laden. When he next appears on video, he should be either dead or blindfolded — and the impact of that scene on Arab opinion will be indisputable.

First published in National Review Online.