Could it be that Osama bin Laden absconded from life altogether? Following an early July videotape of Ayman al-Zawahiri, a message from the Saudi terrorist was snatched by allied intelligence. There is no surprise in al Qaeda agitprop continuing to emerge, nor one in the age of footage of the old man suggesting bin Laden is long deceased. What does astonish is the fixation of Washington's political class on one whose significance in either world events or the organization he founded has diminished by any metric. Dead or alive, pseudo-religious fascists from the Philippines to Birmingham, England get along fine without Osama.
The latest National Intelligence Estimate details the persistence, if not the recrudescence, of al Qaeda, particularly in rugged, southwest Asian middles of nowhere. Well, whatever the setbacks in Pakistan's frontier — or those in Afghanistan's — every fair-weather salient towards Kabul attempted by the Taliban and al Qaeda for the past six years has been either turned away or smashed. Al Qaeda's mythology has been countervailed by four, going on five years of the gruesome killing of Arabs and Muslims trying to instate civil order with fair and regular elections.
The Bush administration, which these days jumps if the opposition says Boo, is yet lucid and confident about the difference between celebrity and centrality. Where did, say, the Islamists in Tehran come up with their fashion of totalism? Not a Saudi millionaire's boy gone bad. Who do most Democrats demand "be found"? Osama bin Laden. It makes you wonder when one's case for victory in war rests on chasing after a very likely dead man.