ring Muslim societies to what he believes to be the purity of early Islam, and to unify them under a restored Caliphate, the unified imperial government of the early and classical Islamic age. The United States and the West as a whole are in a sense secondary to bin Laden's project. So are specific causes such as Palestine, which was only added belatedly to bin Laden's agenda, apparently in a bid to widen his support among the Arab public (Kaus).
In his view, and that of his adherents, the US and the West have intruded on the Islamic world militarily, politically, and economically, while secular Western culture has further corrupted Islamic society on a cultural level. Ending this Western intrusion is necessary to the furtherance of the project of Islamic reformation, but is not in itself the primary goal of that project. The ultimate goal is, rather, the reformation û by force if necessary û of the Islamic world itself.
Nevertheless, overcoming Western influence
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