Opinion Are we safer now that Osamas dead?
Four questions we should ask ourselves
To give the devil his awful due,Osama bin Laden was the greatest terrorist of the modern age. He took what had been disparate,disorganised terrorist groups and reshaped them into a disciplined and immensely ambitious organisation,al-Qaeda,with the singular goal of waging jihad on the West.
Now that bin Laden is dead,the most pressing question we need to ask is: Will his death make a difference? Is the world today safer than it was on Sunday,when bin Laden was still among the living? Though it is not an easy question to answer,it seems to me that there are four areas where it ought to be asked:
The Arab Spring: The commentariat was quick to note the delicious irony that bin Ladens death coincided with the citizen uprisings in Egypt,Tunisia,Libya and elsewhere. The Arab Spring has shown that millions of Muslims have zero interest in the hardline theocracy favoured by al-Qaeda. What they yearn for instead is freedom and democracy.
Lawrence Wright,the author of The Looming Tower,a Pulitzer-Prize winning book about al-Qaeda,is convinced that bin Ladens death could help prevent the Arab Spring from sputtering out. As long as he was around,he created an alternative narrative, said Wright. When the moment comes that the democratic movement falters and there always is such a moment al-Qaeda could say: We told you so. The fact that he is gone makes it more likely for the Arab Spring to complete its reformation cycle.
The War in Afghanistan: Ever since he came into office,President Obama has insisted that our presence in Afghanistan was directly related to the ongoing threat from al-Qaeda. Ten years in,though,the war has no end in sight and dwindling public support. James Lindsay,a senior vice president of that establishment bulwark Council on Foreign Relations,wrote that the president could use bin Ladens death to say that Americas goal has been achieved and use it as an excuse to wind down the war. Whether the president will take such a step is unclear. But its now at least feasible.
Terrorism Itself: Michael Nacht,a defence official who now teaches at Berkeley,believes that bin Ladens death will diminish the terrorist threat to the United States. Nacht compared terrorism in the bin Laden era to a fatal
disease. Now,he says,its more like a chronic illness: It can still cause you trouble,but its not a mortal theat.
But this may turn out to be wishful thinking. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that at the time of the 9/11 attacks,al-Qaeda had maybe 200 members; today,it is vaster and more far-reaching than before the US sought to take it down. Independent offshoots have sprung up in Yemen,Somalia and elsewhere. New terrorist leaders include Nasir al-Wahishi,who leads al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,and Anwar al-Awlaki,an American-born cleric who has been involved in several terrorist plots. Although America does a much better job of rooting out planned attacks,the threat remains very real,with or without bin Laden.
Relations with The Muslim World: Lets face it: Much of the Muslim world today is deeply distrustful of anything America does. For this,certainly,a good portion of the blame goes to the misguided invasion of Iraq and its aftermath which,in turn,was a response to 9/11 and bin Laden. In that sense,America played right into bin Ladens hands.
The clock cant be turned back just because hes dead. The distrust remains strong. A friend who recently returned from Turkey ostensibly a close ally told me that the Turkish media were united in their virulent opposition to NATOs actions in Libya. The image of Westerners dropping bombs on Muslims is very hard for Muslims to accept, he said. One hopes that this is not bin Ladens enduring legacy. But thats something only we can fix.
Share
