A Psychological Profile of Osama bin Laden.

Understanding Osama bin Laden's personal history illuminates his motivation, inner conflicts, decisions and behaviors. His relationships with his mother, father, country and religion set the stage for his conflicted choices as an adolescent and then as an adult. Although only a cursory psychological profile is possible based on public domain information, the profile constructed here could be useful in setting future foreign policy. Perhaps the crucial mistake in U.S. foreign policy was abandoning bin Laden as an asset when Russian forces were expelled from Afghanistan in 1989: this act by the U.S. set the stage for the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.