As the New York Times states in a Sept. 14 editorial, "Unless the evidence trail takes an unexpected turn, it will lead American diplomacy, and quite possibly American combat forces, into one of the world’s most volatile and tangled regions." That region is Osama bin Laden’s neighborhood. Understanding the complex political and socio-cultural dynamics of that region will be crucial to assessing America’s policy choices.

In a special briefing, two prominent Carnegie analysts and a noted expert from Georgetown University examined this region on which so much attention is now being directed.

• Martha Brill Olcott, Carnegie senior associate, is a leading expert on Central Asia and the Islamic world. Her new working paper, Revisiting the Twelve Myths of Central Asia, is available at http://www.ceip.org/pubs.

• Anatol Lieven, Carnegie senior associate, was a correspondent for The Times (London) in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the late 1980s, where he covered the start of the Afghan civil wars. He has written extensively on modern warfare and military intervention, including on the Chechen wars.

• Daniel Brumberg, associate professor of government at Georgetown University, is the author of Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran.