Will Osama rock the vote? [View All]

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The American presidential election could be decided by a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

John Arquilla
Sunday, February 1, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/01/ING234I8FC1.DTL

Howard Dean and Wesley Clark keep saying that the war on Iraq was a big mistake -- and John Kerry seems to agree with them -- but only Osama bin Laden can prove them right. If, by the November election, the al Qaeda mastermind is able to mount another large terrorist attack inside the United States, bin Laden will show that Iraq has been a fatal distraction from the more pressing business of ripping apart his network. And George Bush will lose his job.

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Another aircraft-based attack inside the United States would have devastating psychological effects upon us, but bin Laden knows that we are best prepared to thwart him in this area. So he may create a variation on a theme, say, by attacking our aircraft with shoulder-mounted missiles. This follows a trend begun with the attack on an Israeli jet taking off from Mombasa, Kenya, and continued more recently in attacks on commercial aircraft operating out of Baghdad International. More likely, though, bin Laden will try to strike in some area where we haven't concentrated our attention and defenses.

The main point is, if bin Laden has the capability to launch an attack on America this year, he will. It must be an irresistible temptation to know that, from his remote cave, he could possibly exert a decisive influence on the political succession in the United States.

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So, whatever drama may seem to be lacking in the grinding attrition of the Democratic primaries, they will nevertheless play an important role as a catalyst for the tense but largely hidden set piece going on at the same time. Al Qaeda operatives may be gathering to launch a pre-election attack on the United States while "hunter-killer" teams of special forces will be redoubling their efforts to capture or kill bin Laden and root out his operatives before they can strike.