(Politico) Shibley Telhami - The power and pride that the peaceful masses exhibit in the streets of Cairo are Bin Laden's worst nightmare. Peaceful masses, not the murder of innocents, overthrew a regime most thought was entrenched. Al-Qaeda leaders, including second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, told the Arab people to take on the seemingly overwhelming power of the state with bloody attacks against its symbols. The al-Qaeda leadership insisted that militant Islam was the way. Al-Qaeda may remain a force, but after events in Tunisia and Egypt its public appeal will ring hollow. The most important national security threat to the U.S. remains al-Qaeda and its allies; and the outcome of the Egyptian uprising will have a decided bearing on energizing or weakening these groups and their message. The writer is Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
2011-02-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive