It was a primitive form of surgery. Almost ten years ago, the United States and its allies stuck a knife deep into Afghanistan in an attempt to remove two malignancies, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. One of those, Osama bin Laden’s crew, is nearly gone. The Taliban, after going into remission for a brief period, has come back.
The knife remains in the patient. With bin Laden gone, the debate has intensified: what to do with the knife?
With his severity and grandiosity, bin Laden had outlived his tactical, strategic, and philosophic usefulness to jihadists.
How we define Osama bin Laden’s death matters.
The messaging used to sell the invasion of Libya to the American people — that NATO was taking up the ‘responsibility to protect’ — painted a thin veneer over lurking geopolitical motives.
Since Obama came to office in January 2009, U.S. security assistance to the Yemeni regime has gone up 20-fold. Despite such large-scale unconditional support, however, the 32-year reign of autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh may finally be coming to an end. Yet the Obama administration has been ambivalent in its support for a democratic transition in this impoverished but strategically important country.
It’s difficult to understand how blowing up Pakistani militaries avenges bin Laden’s killing by U.S. forces.
If the United States decided to take over Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program, it could escalate into war.
Barring jihadist infiltration, Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program is reasonably safe.
Is there any real reason to retaliate when you’re about to be wiped off the face of the earth in a nuclear attack?
If the killing of Osama bin Laden were a Hollywood murder mystery, the shootout scene in Abbottabad would be followed by the unveiling of the sponsor who arranged for the al-Qaeda safe house. Is it the Pakistani intelligence officer who appears early in the movie to assure his U.S. counterparts that he is fully committed to bringing bin Laden to justice? Is it the Saudi construction magnate who owes several major favors to the bin Laden family? Or perhaps it’s the U.S. embassy official who, it might turn out, believes that Osama is more useful alive than dead — until finally, he is useful no longer.