The Tunisians who overthrew the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were never armed, neither with the pictures of Osama bin Laden, nor with the statements of al-Qaeda. Nor did the million-strong marches that Tahrir Square had seen, raise his portrait and adopt his discourse. We did not see any presence by bin Laden in the protest squares in Sana'a. No pictures of him were found either, in the protests of Daraa or Homs. And the rebels of Benghazi did not attempt to make use of his audio recordings, even when some of them had passed through his rather worrisome training camps. The protesters in the squares of the Arab Spring never said thus that their first priority was to fight America, whom bin Laden labeled as the ‘head of the snake'. The people of the Middle East see the tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, through the looking glass of the Arab Spring and its implications. The discourse of al-Qaeda, which appeared attractive to certain youths for some time, proved to be lacking in appeal, when the people took to the street in a number of countries, to express their anger, their dreams and their aspirations. One can even say that those who flocked to the public squares have demanded the opposite of what al-Qaeda has been calling for. They demanded democracy, the peaceful transition of power, independence for the judiciary, and more transparency. These demands in fact, have nothing in common with Osama bin Laden's vision. Osama bin Laden did not live to see the weakened U.S. troops withdrawing from Afghanistan, and leaving behind much blood and a lost standing. Most probably, the man who rejoiced seeing the Red Army withdraw and the Soviet Union implode, dreamt of reproducing this image once again. Of course, this does not invalidate whatsoever the momentousness of what had happened on September 11, 2001. Nor does it undermine the prices paid throughout an entire decade born out of the womb of the so-called ‘raids on Washington on New York'. It was no simple matter that al-Qaeda managed to move the war to the U.S. soil no less, to target the symbols of the empire's success and power, and to make America feel insecure in its own territory. And this has meant that henceforth, America had to live with fear, even when it is the world's only superpower. Despite the fact that the United States possessed a military machine unparalleled in the history of the world, that deadly blow ended the golden age which started practically with the suicide of the Soviet Union, and the entire world falling into the hands of the model that achieved a decisive victory, without firing a single bullet. After ten years, one can say that the September 11 attacks did not succeed in igniting a permanent fire along the fault lines between the Islamic world and the West. Yes, they succeeded in creating tensions, but the attacks did not manage to achieve their long-term goals in the two major countries, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. And we can only imagine the disastrous consequences that could have emerged, if either country had fallen into the hands of suicidal policies. The attacks also succeeded in luring U.S. forces into the Afghan trap, i.e. the country which history says that both its nature and composition prevent any invading force from ever leaving victorious. The attacks also succeeded in bleeding and exhausting America economically and financially, especially when the Bush administration decided upon removing the Saddam Hussein regime, which had no links to the September 11 attacks, and on premises that were revealed as having been false. We cannot say that al-Qaeda has been wiped out. Its pupils are trying to entrench themselves in a number of spots across the Arab world. We cannot say either that the terrorist threat is dying out. However, it is certain that the eruptions of the Arab Spring have denied al-Qaeda and its ilk the ability to claim that they speak on behalf of the peoples or represent their aspirations. This is an extremely important outcome in an area such as the Middle East, which is undergoing the pangs of a rebirth that will determine the future of the regimes and peoples there, and the relationship between the region and the world and the present era. While America has dealt painful blows to al-Qaeda, the strongest blow came through the Arab Spring, which is today giving Islamist factions, with broad representation sometimes, the chance to engage in political life.
