The death of the World’s No.1 Terrorist heralds no real change in fundamentals or policy
May 2, 2011. Osama bin Laden is dead. The world celebrated, berated, fussed and fumed. Two weeks on, life’s moved on.
Don’t be surprised by the statement that the elimination of the world’s most wanted terrorist, though a moment of personal victory for America, has not really shaken the foundations of the world or the pillars of terrorism. Undoubtedly it was a successful military operation that gave much-desired brownie points to Barack Obama for his 2012 mandate. Yes, it also exposed the Pakistanis.
But in the larger scheme of things, there are some key elements that remain unchanged.
OBL’s death NOT = Al Qaeda’s death
Let’s not fool ourselves.
Yes the 9/11 mastermind is dead. The US is avenged. Barack Obama finally visited Ground Zero as President. But once the emotional quotient in the story is ignored, the serious threat that is the Al Qaeda looms large and is as lethal today as it was the day before Osama was bumped off.
And every security analyst sticks to this. In his piece ‘Think Again: Al Qaeda’ in Foreign Policy, Middle East security expert Daniel Byman says, “By the time of bin Laden’s death, al Qaeda was again training would-be terrorists in Pakistan, recruiting fighters for Iraq and other conflicts, and issuing propaganda on a mind-numbing basis. Because of his newfound celebrity and the loss of his Afghan safe haven, bin Laden’s own operational role was necessarily more limited after 9/11 than it had been before.”
-Agencies