Bin Laden's clarity

In his pre-recorded videotape on Sunday (Oct. 7), a fatigue- wearing Osama bin Laden made clear that the current fight is about much more than the Sept. 11 attacks he now takes credit for. It's really about the future of the entire Middle East, and especially the role of Islam and its adherents in the modern world.

Bin Laden has exposed the soft underbelly of the "moderate" Islamic world: Too often Islamic leaders have lived a contradiction, wishing the bin Ladens would go away but, as long as they still exist, standing aside as they direct their venom at America and Israel rather than at their own regimes.

In short, they have allowed the Islamic faith to be hijacked and politicized. It's no coincidence that in bin Laden's perverse universe, the Saudis, who maintain a strict Islamic state, are corrupt for having relations with the U.S. But Sadam, whose secular regime invades an brutalizes its fellow Muslim nations, is a partner. Bin Laden specifically invokes sanctions against Iraq as justification for his attack. And standing beside him is Ayman al-Zawahri, head of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, which murdered Anwar Sadat.

The good news is that Islam has the moral resources within its tradition to make the right choices. As the Koran notes: "If anyone kills an innocent person, it is as if he has killed all of humanity." And for much of its history Islam has arguably been far more amenable to trade and commerce than Christianity, which helps account for the great civilizations Islam once supported. But the burden now falls on today's leadership to distinguish between that great tradition and the barbarism of bin Laden.

-- The Asia Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong