Leadership Quote by Frank Carlucci

Carlucci is doing something seasoned national security hands do instinctively: re-centering the story away from American self-importance and toward the regional power geometry that actually drives the violence. The line “we’re a vehicle” deliberately shrinks the U.S. from protagonist to instrument, a rhetorical demotion meant to puncture the post-9/11 reflex to read al-Qaeda’s strategy as purely anti-American grievance. In his framing, the U.S. is the accelerant, not the main fire.

The intent is also bureaucratic and political. By naming Saudi Arabia as “the real target,” Carlucci gives policymakers a lens that makes uncomfortable facts harder to dodge: the kingdom’s centrality to U.S. interests, the monarchy’s legitimacy crisis, and the ways Washington’s security guarantees can become a recruiting tool for its enemies. He’s hinting at a structural contradiction: America props up a regime that jihadists consider both corrupt and apostate, and then acts surprised when that support becomes the motive force for attacks on Americans.

The subtext in “topple that regime” is about succession, ideology, and control of holy sites, but also about oil-market stability and U.S. basing rights. Carlucci isn’t romanticizing bin Laden’s aims; he’s translating them into the language of coups and regime change, the coin of the realm in Washington.

“But that’s a whole other story” is the tell: a knowing half-shrug that signals classified complexity, diplomatic sensitivity, and the limits of what a former defense secretary can say plainly. It’s a line that both reveals and contains.