A Very Bad Year for al-Qaeda

Al Qaeda is having a very bad year. And from the terrorists' standpoint, the death of Osama bin Laden isn't even the worst of it. The biggest potential blow is the spread of democratic politics in the Arab world. If it succeeds, Al Qaeda will be deprived of its reason for being.

Bin Laden's death at the hands of American commandos produced strikingly little outrage in the Muslim world. In 2001, when he held the United States and Europe in a state of terror, Bin Laden was a hero to a sizable fringe of Muslims frustrated by their countries' stagnant politics. But by the time he died this week, the Saudi-born terrorist had become little more than an object of curiosity. Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center found that the number of people in Muslim countries who expressed confidence in Bin Laden plummeted during the last 10 years. Even in Pakistan, where he lived his final years, the terrorist's "job approval" dropped from 52% in 2005 to 18% in 2010.