The Mass Murderer bin Laden

The impact of the assassination of the mass murderer bin Laden on the likelihood of the success of the Arab revolutions is out of scope for this blog because we are not dealing with personalities.

I can say that insofar as these revolutions are by and for the middle classes, they have not lost an ally, but instead are free of an enemy, by his death.

And moreover, that anyone seeking to reform their state along Western – or explicitly American – lines, has one fewer symbol to overcome.

And finally, that revolutions are always in favor of something, not just against something that has to be annihilated. Bin Laden on the contrary was a radical counter-revolutionary for the “restoration” of a state that never existed, anywhere, but in his own malignant imagination.

So, just as it's a good thing on general principles, it’s a good thing on revolutionary principles.