It’s a silly counterfactual, I know… but if I *were* Osama, I’d release a video at some point in the next fortnight saying that my plans worked perfectly: I’ve made the stupid Americans blindly rally round the flag and do exactly as I wanted. Now, the man who wants a war between Christianity and Islam has another four years in power, and all good Muslims must show America that Allah is more powerful.

It’s not true, obviously: the Bush win was based mostly on ‘moral choice’ (aka ‘we hate gays’) grounds… but if you’re up for murdering tens of thousands of innocent people including thousands of Muslims, then you’re probably not too worried about the occasional cause-advancing fib. It would play well to the core audience, it would scare some Americans, and it would help (further) intensify the divide between the US and the rest of the liberal-Christian-ish world.

Had Kerry won, on the other hand, I’d release a video saying that America’s surrender to the softer candidate showed how powerful Islam was, that the West never had a chance of defeating it, and that all that now was required to get America to retreat from the Islamic world was an intensified terrorist campaign in the Middle East. Or words to that effect. I’d probably have recorded both videos far in advance, in case of death or other difficulties.

Not sure what this proves, other than that assessing election results based on what Al Qaeda might say about them is a Stupid Thing To Do.