This calm was tempered by profound anxiety but was coloured too by a suspicion that perhaps, despite the extraordinary events unfolding across the planet and the enduring trauma of 9/11, the world had not changed quite as much as many had thought on that day in early autumn 2001 when the planes had arrived from the clear blue sky in New York and Washington. As the first phase of the 9/11 Wars – the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – shaded into the second phase of the conflict, it appeared more and more likely that the apocalypse that many had thought imminent a few months previously had at the very least been postponed. The institutions of Western and Middle Eastern societies appeared stronger than many had thought. Those seeking to undermine them seemed weaker. And the critical middle ground – the hundreds of millions in the Islamic world whom bin Laden had hoped to radicalize and mobilize – remained at the very least uncommitted.Certainly the war in Afghanistan had not provoked the violence across the Islamic world that some had predicted.
