Soon after the United States went to war against the Taliban in pursuit of Osama in October 2001, I penned a widely published analysis that at the time provoked controversy. However, it anticipated the course of the titanic struggle between a global power and a determined fanatic over the next decade.
We have, once again, played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands. This might seem like an odd assertion, since the al-Qaeda mastermind is finally dead at the hands of U.S. Special Forces, most heads of state have voiced their congratulations, and practically the entire U.S. citizenry is unified in celebration. But Osama bin Laden always understood that the weak use the weapons of the powerful against them, such as U.S. airplanes against U.S. skyscrapers.
According to a recent WikiLeaks dump, if harm came to bin Laden, the West would be subjected to a “nuclear hellstorm.”
Muammar Gaddafi is the undead chicken. Bashar al-Assad of Syria and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain are the unscared monkeys. The United States has shaped its policy toward the evolving situation in the Middle East according to the Chinese proverb of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” The Obama administration has intervened in the conflict in Libya with the apparent goal of punishing Gaddafi for cracking down on the emerging protest movement back in February. This intervention was designed to send a message to other autocrats in the region: don’t fire on your unarmed opposition — or else. But the United States and its allies are having problems with the “or else” part of the equation.
“He is finished,” was the regrettably premature pronouncement of a relative of bin Laden in the nineties.
Bin Laden’s crime may have been a form of blowback. But why do Americans show little interest in bringing him, if still alive, to justice?
What if we not only left Afghanistan but declared bin Laden dead? (The burden would be on jihadis to prove he’s alive.)
The United States is struggling with Pakistan. The problem is manifold, encompassing a resurgent al-Qaeda, a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan with bases in Pakistan, and Islamist militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province.
It has become a given, even among many progressive critics of Bush administration policy, that while the U.S. war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, unnecessary, poorly executed, and contrary to America’s national security interests, the war on AfghanistanÂwhich was launched five years ago last weekÂwas a legal, moral, and a necessary response to protect American national security in the aftermath of 9/11. Virtually every member of Congress who has gone on record opposing the Iraq War supported the Afghanistan War. Similarly, a number of soldiers who have resisted serving in Iraq on moral grounds have expressed their willingness to serve in Afghanistan.
Despite promises from the White House that the address to the nation on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy would be non-political, President George W. Bush devoted much the speech to defending his unrelated policy on Iraq.