America has been celebrating the killing of Osama Bin Laden. And much of the Western world has cheered in sympathy. But the deadly assault by American Special Forces on the Al-Qaida leader in his Pakistani hide-out was not simply an act of revenge, although all the sweeter for having been longed for and plotted for a decade. It should not be seen as a mere settling of accounts with a man responsible, in President Barack Obama’s words, for “the worst attack in American history.”
Bin Laden was feared and detested because he struck a blow at American self-esteem. With the devastating attacks of 9/11, he had dared to carry the war into America’s heartland, puncturing its view of itself as an exceptional nation, favoured above all others. His killing will serve to wash clean that terrible moment of national humiliation. The death-feud is over. Dumped into the sea, his blood-stained carcass will provide food, if not for worms, then for fishes. Americans will have a sense of awakening from a nightmare. They will be able to renew their faith in their country’s greatness.
In the jungle of international power politics there is no joy to match that of the demise of an iconic enemy. Americans will rejoice at his death, but will that be the end of the story? That remains to be seen.
There is little doubt that President Obama’s stature will be boosted by Bin Laden’s demise. He will at last be seen by ordinary Americans as a strong and effective commander-in-chief dedicated to ensuring American security. His chance of re-election in 2012 will be enhanced. As a result, there will be much gnashing of teeth in the Republican camp.
Yet, in announcing the news to America and the world, Obama was careful not to gloat, as his predecessor George W. Bush might well have done had the killing taken place under his watch. Instead, he was sobriety itself. No one is more acutely aware that the war against Islamic militancy cannot be won by military means alone.
America, Obama was careful to stress, is not at war with Islam. This is a sentiment he has already expressed a number of times, notably in his celebrated Cairo speech of June 2009. The problem, however, is that Obama is no longer believed. He has failed to match his words with actions. The great hopes he aroused at that time have given way to an equally immense disillusion. The promise of a new departure in American foreign policy has worn desperately thin.
Obama seems to be trapped between his personal convictions and the electoral necessities of American politics. Instead of acting resolutely in his first years in office to defuse Arab and Muslim anger at American policies, he has bowed to domestic pressures from the U.S. Congress, from Bush-era neoconservatives whose influence still reaches deep inside the Administration, from powerful pro-Israeli lobbies and their affiliated think-tanks, and from an increasingly right-wing and Islamophobic American public. If anything, America under Obama has waged war more ferociously than ever against radical Islamic groups.
Will the elimination of Bin Laden put an end to Islamic militancy? This is unlikely. It would seem that in recent years, Bin Laden has been less of an operational commander, sending militants to attack American targets across the world, and more of a symbol of Islamic resistance, making occasional speeches from what looked like semi-retirement. His message has been ‘franchised’ to far-flung militant groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, in the Saharan borderlands of North Africa and elsewhere. Since they have adopted the al-Qaida appellation, some of these groups may now seek to avenge him. Retaliation by such militants against America and its allies is a distinct possibility and will require additional defensive measures by security services, no doubt to the further inconvenience of air travellers.
Yet Bin Laden’s death could provide Obama with a unique opportunity to revise and correct some aspects of American foreign policy. Bush’s Global War on Terror (GWOT) could at last be put officially to rest. Obama could proclaim victory over al-Qaida, announce a ceasefire in Afghanistan, followed by a speedy withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from that war-ravaged country.
The Talban and other militant groups, which the United States and its allies have been fighting for a decade, at great cost in men and treasure, had at one time hosted and protected al-Qaida. But they are not al-Qaida and should not be confused with it. The Talban are not international terrorists. They are an essentially Pashtun tribal resistance movement fighting foreign occupation.
The United States should seize upon the death of Bin Laden to promote urgent peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership. At the same time, drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, which destabilise the country and arouse fierce anti-American sentiment, should be halted. The killing of Bin Laden was a clear success for American Special Forces, but many, indeed perhaps most, counter-terrorist operations are counterproductive as they inflame opinion and arouse hate. New terrorists are created rather than old ones tamed.
There remains the unresolved Arab-Israel conflict which has long been a major cause of Muslim and Arab hostility to the United States, and to the West in general. Will Obama’s new stature and authority, earned from the elimination of Bin Laden, give him the political muscle he needs to deal with Israel’s far right government? Nothing is less certain.
Instead of welcoming the recent reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas as a major step towards Israeli negotiations with a united Palestinian movement, the United States has followed Israel’s lead in condemning it. Israel wants to divide the Palestinians precisely in order to avoid negotiations. In Washington, Israel’s friends in Congress are pressing for a ban on U.S. aid to any Palestinian government that includes Hamas.
The democratic wave sweeping across the Arab world will not tolerate American complicity in Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinians. Egypt’s new leadership has already urged the United States to recognise Palestinian statehood and has announced that it will break the cruel siege of Gaza by opening the Rafah crossing on a permanent basis.
If the United States is to salvage its battered image in the Arab and Muslim world it must heed the new trend in the region. The killing of Bin Laden may give American opinion a moment of triumphalism, but it needs to be followed by a major re-think of American policies. Only then will Americans be safe.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
Copyright © 2011 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 03 May 2011
Word Count: 1,076
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