Yeah, and Bin Laden at least was expecting to, otherwise they have had the escape routs, caves and supplies ready. His disappearance required logistics that had to have been in place during the 9-11 attacks. If he was expecting to fight toe to toe with the "Great Satan" he would have and no doubt died in the process. That was never his plan. That's never the plan of a terrorist group. You have to understand that terrorism achieves its aims more obliquely. Most terrorism is committed in the name OF democracy against what are preconceived to be repressive systems like the British in Ireland, the Russian Czars, the French in Algeria, The former West Germans and colonial and apartheid regimes around the world.
The Great Satan is now perched in Mesopotamia, this time willing to stand and die to exact the consequence of Democracy where the Arab "strong horse" used to reside.
Cold Leviathan vs horned Behemoth arisen from the desert? Interesting. You realize that one cannot defeat the other, but that may not matter because, paradoxically, in Arab mythology one will ride the other.
BTW we also said we would "hound Mexico for 2000 years" to make them a free democratic society. It's all ideological nonsense that sounds good only on paper (and not even there). For that matter we didn't even have the patience to do it for ourselves; as soon as Federal troops left the south the Bourbon Democrats came right back into power and the lynchings began.
Meanwhile, five years have gone by without a strike on the Great Satan's homeland. Perhaps the jihad is heeding the call for restraint from the Arab Street, what with all this "success" brought their way by the 9-11 attack.
They don't need to strike again, the first one worked. You don't actually think that terrorist like Bin Laden believe they can win via direct efforts do you? That's not even the point of Terrorism. The attacks on 9-11 were never meant to ruin us economically, nor the 3000 some deaths meant to bleed us. Their designed to get a reaction.
They went to a lot of effort to pull that attack off, you have to ask yourself what were their real aims?
A trade of Iran for Israel will not be perceived to be a win for anyone.
Yeah it would, Iran is a heterodox nation from Bin Laden's perspective. Its loss is also a win win, if it takes out Israel. Being Shia Iran will no doubt be excluded from Sunni hegemony anyway. Besides which you still haven't grasped the true diabolism of their mentality, any three Muslim countries sacrificed to get Israel would be a victory in the eyes of these people.
Let me put it this way, if our aims are to fundamentally change the political structure of the Islamic countries by creating a democratic system within an Islamic context (which we would need tot do to make democracy work in most Muslim countries) that is basically what Bin Laden wanted. If we attempt to create a more American, "whiggish," democratic system we will fail because any political system which does not cater to the cultural realities of Islam will be in conflict with it as a rival faith. Which do you think will win in that fight?
But, creating a democratic system which is informed by Islamic doctrine, which as I said seems to be the strategy for making the democratic revolution there lasting and popular, it would mean the likely resurrection of a democratic caliphate with a strong sense of "manifest destiny." Remember that Bin Laden believes he is, or will be, popular, thus democracy isn't his enemy as such. His enemy is "secular democracy," which would never take in the Islamic world and even if we manage to set it up in Iraq as a springboard for democratic revolutions in the rest of the Middle East, those secondary revolution will have to be of a religious flavor.
Perhaps Democracy in Iraq is impossible, as you assert, but why is it that some of the same ones who once declared a joint effort between Iraq and al-Qaida was impossible because Iraq was SECULAR, now say Democracy is impossible because its people are suddenly TOO ISLAMIC?