BIN LADEN TAKES AIM AT SAUDI ARABIA

Osama Bin Laden has released another tape, and this time he is taking aim squarely at the House of Saud.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An audio recording purportedly by Osama bin Laden, praising gunmen who carried out a Dec. 6 attack in Saudi Arabia, was posted on the Internet on Thursday, suggesting the al Qaeda leader is still alive. In the recording, the speaker blessed a group of Saudi al Qaeda militants who stormed the U.S. consulate in Jeddah in the first attack on a Western mission in Saudi Arabia. He lambasted the rulers of the world's largest oil exporter as "corrupt, oppressive" U.S. agents and warned them they would be toppled in a popular uprising if they did not to allow their people to choose a true Muslim leadership.

It's been interesting to see Bin Laden's changing strategy. I think he now knows that he overreached with the 9/11 attacks against the United States. But, sensing an opportunity, he realizes that the U.S. intervention in Iraq has created a battleground to distract America while he rebuilds his base of followers and takes aim at what he believes is the weak link in the Arab world, the Saudi Royal Family. It seems to me that he has given up on Afghanistan and is content now to hide (either in Iran or Pakistan's northwestern territories) and act as a spiritual leader of the struggle. He no doubt harbors visions of a triumphant return to his native country, Saudi Arabia, liberated from what he sees as the corrupt Saudi royals and returned to traditional Islamic rule.

Ironically, it may be in our interests to see him win out against the Saudi royals. If Bin Laden were to reappear as the head (spiritual or otherwise) of an actual state, he would at least present himself as a target. It would also galvanize the Muslim world to choose which side they are on as Bin Laden took custody of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Either the majority of Muslims would reject Bin Ladenism and assemble in a coalition to liberate the geographic center of their faith, or they would embrace him and his ideas, in which case the West (I hope) would be galvanized to join us in our war against Islamofascism in a more aggressive fashion than they have thus far.