Everyone’s abuzz about the news of a tape aired on Al Jazeera by someone purporting to be Osama bin Laden, in which he urges further attacks on the U.S. and talks of an Al Qaeda partnership with Iraq. This is certainly conclusive proof. Conclusive proof that, just as many of us have long suspected, a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be the fulfillment of bin Laden’s fondest dream.

Let’s think about this for a second. You have to be a little nuts to be the leader of a massive terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, but you don’t last as long as bin Laden has by being a dunce. At a time when Russia, France, and Germany are pushing back against a war that had seemed increasingly inevitable, this is precisely the sort of thing needed to overcome that opposition and guarantee that an invasion takes place. Surely bin Laden realizes as much: so then why would he broadcast such a message just now? Why, unless that result is precisely what he’s attempting to encourage, in hopes of enflaming further hatred against the United States, and getting rid of the hated Hussein in the process? If the pair truly were in “partnership,” you’d expect bin Laden to be rather more discreet about it, for his partner’s sake.

Some folks have speculated that this tape is a fabrication of an administration hungry for war, that the timing is just too convenient. The timing is convenient. But that doesn’t mean the tape is a fake, because the one person more eager for invasion than George W. Bush is Osama bin Laden.