It’s been said that for al Qaeda, 9/11 was a tactical victory yet a strategic disaster. But it may be too early to tell. These people are patient; they look far down the road. Perhaps we should too. Consider this:

Bin Laden did his best to insure that when the US responded to the events of 9/11, he had Taliban protection, a place to run and an escape route to someplace safe. If he thinks long term, maybe he figured that if didn’t get killed immediately and instead made it to his safe place, then he could just sit tight and wait it out in order to eventually (say, 4 or 5 years down the road), begin to regroup.

Perhaps Bin Laden was hoping and praying that Bush would do something stupid that might assist him in regrouping, like invade a Muslim country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and thus play right into his hands by winning him more recruits, complete with training grounds, while taking some of the heat off Afghanistan allowing for a resurgence of the Taliban. Wait a minute…maybe it was not such a disastrous strategy after all.