The alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, does not consider the fight against America to be an end, but instead a tactic — a means of achieving a larger goal — according to professor Michael Doran of the Department of Near Eastern Studies.
Doran, who spoke yesterday to a capacity audience in McCosh 28, articulated that bin Laden's real goal is to spread his radical vision of Islam to Muslims around the world.
"He believes that the existing order in the Middle East is corrupt and run by apostates," Doran said. "Thus, the real fight is a civil war between him and other Muslims, with the primary goal being the creation of a new order consistent with his vision."
Doran said he believes that, since Sept. 11, many Americans and people around the world have incorrectly viewed bin Laden as the leader of an organization whose primary goal is to kill Americans. This theory, though true to some degree, he said, leaves out what Doran calls the "heart of bin Laden's ideological campaign against us."
Bin Laden wants to provoke us," Doran said. "He believes, for example, that the sight of what we are doing in Afghanistan may serve as a catalyst and cause the people of Saudi Arabia to revolt against the regime that exists there."
Bin Laden's hostility toward the government of Saudi Arabia is based on his belief that the regime is hostile to Islam in that it accepts the faith yet has fallen away from it, according to Doran. Bin Laden's feelings toward the rulers of Saudi Arabia are analogous to those he has toward other Islamic states, including Pakistan.
The United States, Doran said, emerges as a convenient target for bin Laden and his radical followers, whom he calls 'Salafi' Muslims, because of the "propaganda value of attacking the U.S."
This "propaganda value," Doran continued, is the direct result of a sentiment in the Islamic world that the United States is indifferent to Arab needs. He pointed to American involvement in conflicts where many Muslims have died, the United States' pro-Israeli position in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Persian Gulf War as some of the reasons "why resentment of the U.S. exists in the Arab world."
Fundamentally, Doran asserted, bin Laden wants his fellow Muslims to rigidly adhere to Islamic law. Failure to do so, he believes, "is the equivalent of worshipping an idol and not God."
Capitalizing on the United States' role in the Islamic world, Doran contends, is bin Laden's way of achieving the goal of bringing lax Muslims and lax Islamic regimes back to the faith.
Keeping bin Laden's means and ends in mind, Do-ran concluded "his sword is, in effect, sim-ultaneously lashing out at the U.S. and the reigning order in the Islamic world."
