Four years before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, I made contact with a Saudi dissident living in London in an effort to arrange an interview with Osama bin Laden. Dr. Sa'id al-Faghi (he was a surgeon before he became a political exile) knew how to contact bin Laden through an Egyptian intermediary (another doctor). Al-Faghi agreed to help me get a face-to-face interview with bin Laden. He told me the man who later became America's public enemy number one was ready to speak to American television.

I was subsequently deeply disappointed when CBS News refused to send me to Afghanistan to conduct the interview. My bosses apparently felt it wasn't worth the air fare to interview a man they saw as an obscure Arab of little interest to the public. But I did learn something from my thwarted efforts. Dr. Al-Faghi explained to me bin Laden's strategy. It was quite simple.

1.First of all, he wanted to use the news media to raise his public profile.

2.Secondly, he wanted to goad the United States into attacking a major Muslim country.

3.Finally, he hoped that would mobilize the Muslim world to rise up against the West.

Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in achieving the first two goals of his plan.
But instead of launching a Muslim revolution, he tied down the world's greatest military power – which is not quite the same thing. The Muslim world is not noticeably stronger than it was before 9/11. Suicide bombers do not pose a strategic threat to the United States. But the United States and its reluctant Western allies are bogged down in two messy wars that don't seem “winnable” in the classic sense. As a result, America's margin of manoeuvre has been drastically limited at a time when new challenges have arisen that are potentially more threatening.

Russia is back, flexing its muscles in the Caucasus, and there is not much that the United States can do about it.
It has long been taken for granted that the United States maintains a military establishment big enough to fight two wars. Afghanistan and Iraq punctured that grand illusion. The U.S. armed forces are stretched to the breaking point, and none of America's allies is able and willing to take up the slack. Russia has taken advantage of that weakness and now feels it can expand its political and military influence in countries on its periphery that it used to control in the days of the Soviet Union. Russia's military riposte to Georgia's attack on South Ossetia may be a sign of things to come. Moldova and even Ukraine could be next on the list.

I am not suggesting that America is about to enter another Cold War with Russia, but perceptions of strength and weakness do influence the conduct of foreign policy. President Theodore Roosevelt famously quoted a West African proverb “speak softly and carry a big stick.” From Moscow's point of view, America seems to be doing the opposite.

Big words from the White House do not mean much if they cannot be backed up by strength. The United States does not have spare troops to station in the former Warsaw Pact countries along the borders of Russia. The NATO pledge to defend any of its member states from attack is essentially meaningless in this context.

So, the chief beneficiary of 9/11 may turn out to be Russia. That's clearly not what bin Laden wanted. It looks as if the attacks of 9/11 will go down in history as a monumental example of the law of unintended consequences.