Nor is there any reason to suppose that he, or a President Al Gore for that matter, would have been able to secure a broader and stronger alliance against the terrorists.Like it or not, it is George W Bush who finds himself in the hot seat at this defining moment of history. Thus far, buoyed by the typical rallying of Americans behind their President in a moment of crisis, he has performed adequately. Unfortunately, the sole certainty is that the seat will get hotter still.. So far, he hasn’t put a foot wrong. If Osama bin Laden did plan the 11 September attack in America – and still we wait to see the “overwhelming” proof Tony Blair has talked about, not the seven paragraphs of inference attached to British evidence about the earlier US embassy and warship bombings – then things are unfolding pretty much as he wanted

So far, he hasn’t put a foot wrong. More than 1,000 Muslims are secretly arrested by American police officers, some of them brutally beaten in detention. The United States – unable to bomb the Taliban into submission – cosies up to the murderers and rapists of the Northern Alliance, ensuring that the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan – the Pashtuns – remain loyal to their obscurantist masters.True, the Alliance’s bloodiest commander, Rashid Dostun – who first visited Washington in 1996 – has just captured Mazar-i-Sharif.

But this is far from Mr bin Laden’s mountain fastness, and Dostum’s victory will instill rage and fear among millions of non-Taliban Pashtun Afghans.Here for example is how Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid first met the man: “The first time I arrived at the fort to meet Dostum there were bloodstains and pieces of flesh in the muddy courtyard. The guards told me that an hour earlier Dostum had punished a soldier for stealing. The man had been tied to the tracks of a Russian-made tank which then drove around the courtyard crushing his body into mincemeat as Dostum watched.” America’s hero perhaps but not the sort of guy to raise popular support against Mr bin Laden.Surely now the Americans will send in ground troops. For that – if Mr bin Laden is behind the American attack – is what he must all along have intended.

First came the hopeless raid on Mullah Omar’s office in Kandahar. Then the reported despatch of US Special Forces to the ruthless thugs of the Northern Alliance. Surely the US 10th Mountain Division cannot be far behind.If the Taliban had anyone to fear, it was the Alliance’s Shah Massoud. But he was murdered by two Arab suicide bombers on 9 September. Then Abdul Haq – a US favourite who opposed the Taliban – was hanged while trying to arrange a regional coup in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.Messrs Bush and Blair may adopt Churchillian poses in Washington but Arab Gulf leaders are shivering in their golden palaces. For they know – as the others apparently do not – that Saudi Arabia is the principal target of Osama bin Laden’s fury.

We may overlook the fact that more than half the 11 September hijackers were Saudis – but the Saudi regime has not. How can it? The Saudi “masses” will not storm onto the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah to overthrow the kingdom’s rulers. The danger comes from within the royal family, from the disaffected royal princes who regard Mr bin Laden as an inspiration rather than a state enemy, from the senior ulema (Muslim scholars) who hear in his words the authentic voice of conservative Wahhabi Sunni Islam rather than the effete and corrupt edicts of King Fahd.Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, was the man who helped to choose Mr bin Laden to lead the “Arab brigade” against the Soviets in 1979. Hear now what the Good Prince had to say about him on the Arab MBC TV channel last week.