What Do the Uprisings in The Middle East Mean for al-Qaeda?
Publication: Terrorism Monitor March 17, 2011 By: Michael W. S. Ryan There are currently two arguments about what the recent uprisings across the Middle East mean for al-Qaeda. The optimists argue that non-violent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have stripped al-Qaeda’s narrative of its power. The pessimists counter that al-Qaeda is far from finished and will wait for the dust to settle, disappointment to set in, and the revolutionary spirit to turn bitter before it takes advantage of countries weakened by revolution. Perhaps, a better approach to this question is to be found in al-Qaeda’s strategic literature and its traditional relationship to each country in question. Al-Qaeda represents a revolution within Islam. Its strategic literature recounts that Bin Laden commissioned a series of detailed regional studies to inform him about the best approach to jihadist revolution based on the facts of each case. Several years before 9/11, these studies were distribute