Why no more attacks, yet?

This is a really good post from Firedog lake:

Here's the gist:

Al Qaeda hasn’t hit us again because they don’t need to. Bin Laden’s big-picture goal, as I understand it, is to eject the United States from the Middle East and turn the entire region into some kind of 12th-century fundamentalist Islamic utopia. This is a bit of a tough sell, but it becomes easier if he can superheat the Muslim world’s anger at the United States from simmering to volcanic, until the entire region erupts and kicks us out, like Iran did 28 years ago.

The purpose of 9/11 was not to scare the United States into withdrawing from the Middle East; bin Laden is not that naive. No, the purpose of 9/11 was to provoke us into an ill-considered, violent overreaction that would enrage and radicalize the Muslim community, and Bush obliged beyond bin Laden’s bloodiest dreams.

The full post is here.

My own view is that the initial strike was extremely lucky, and that their capacity for another similar stike was over hyped.