BY NOW, there can be no doubt that al Qaeda’s message to the West has been distilled down to two simple concepts. The first is that the terrorist group can be appeased. The second is that, if they aren’t appeased, Westerners face grave consequences. The latest Osama bin Laden audiotape, released on January 19, makes these points explicit and shows how bin Laden intends to fashion his message for Western ears.

In the tape, bin Laden offers a truce in return for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. “We have no objection to responding to a long term truce according to equitable conditions which we would honor,” bin Laden says, “so that the two sides could enjoy security and stability under this truce, and so that we could rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan which the war has destroyed.” Of course this isn’t al Qaeda’s first offer of a truce.