Osama is best considered as the political and intellectual heir to the anarchists who terrorized Europe and America around the turn of the 20th century. He thought that the 9/11 attacks would cripple the Great Satan, leave the Western world rudderless, and inspire Muslims to create the universal caliphate. Twenty years later, how does that look?
Osama was a failure, and not just because we killed him years later. While America overreacted to the attacks, engaged in imperial overreach, and is somewhat diminished on the world stage, the beneficiary has been China—not exactly a friend of militant Islam. The Islamic fundamentalists have discredited themselves all over the globe. Terrorism is on the wane. The world is far better prepared to deal with it. The universal caliphate, like the anarchist utopia, is still a distant dream; it is authoritarian government that is on the rise.