The killing of
Osama Bin Laden by a team of CIA officers and US Navy SEAL Team 6 is an extraordinary event, and one of great historical importance.
Osama Bin
Laden was the the ideological, if not operational, head of Al
Qaeda, and for many Americans, and Europeans represented a monstrous and seemingly protean and omnipresent threat. The removal of that dark ideological cloud hanging over us all must be seen as a moment if not exactly for celebration, then for relief.
In the days and months ahead, however, we must not let the legitimate relief we feel at the death of such an evil man cloud our judgment on the threat of Al
Qaeda-inspired terrorism, or allow ourselves to be deluded that Afghanistan was all about catching Bin Laden, and that we can now simply hightail it out of Camp Bastion, as soon as we can load up the Hercules. Both reactions, although understandable, would be incredibly short-sighted, and could undermine everything that has been achieved in this costly war.
Osama bin Laden was an enormously influential figure in the modern
jihadist movement. 'The
Sheikh' as he is known to his followers, is almost the textbook example of what Max Weber identified as 'charismatic authority'. This son of a multi-millionaire Saudi-Yemeni construction tycoon gave up his wealth and privilege in the opulent and decadent desert kingdom to live in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight a 'holy war' against the infidel, atheist Communist invaders. He helped forge a transnational
jihadi front against the United States, to a degree, uniting the fractured and
dispirate movement under his own banner. He repeatedly attacked the 'arrogant' United States, and was able to evade capture as the world's most wanted man for almost 10 years after the horrific events of 11 September 2001 and the launching of George W Bush's 'Global War on Terror'. There will never be another leader quite like
Osama Bin Laden to act as a figurehead for the global
jihadi movement. Al
Qaeda's second-in-command,
Ayman al-
Zawahiri is thoroughly uncharismatic, and is disliked by many within the movement. American-born preacher and ideologue for Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
Anwar al-
Awlaki, although charismatic and able to reach out to the English-speaking world, lacks the experience and battle-proven reputation of the now deceased founder of the organization. Someone will, of course, fill the gap, but the 'Emir' has big shoes to fill, and no one looks likely to fill them in the near future.
Bin
Laden's death will undoubtedly weaken the organization, already weak before his death, further, although revenge-inspired attacks may make the risk of terrorism increase in the short-term. Does this likely long-term decline in Al
Qaeda's virility mean that the threat of terrorism is now over and we can move on with our lives? Not quite. Bin Laden became the personification of radical
Islamist terrorism in the years after 9/11, partly, it must be admitted, due to the Bush administrations efforts to build Bin Laden up as a
symbolic enemy, an incarnation of evil, which could unite the country in a time of conflict. The threat was never quite so personal, however.
Bin Laden was just one man. An incredibly important man of course, but still just one man. The
jihadi movement is much bigger than one man. The movement had been declining long before the death of Bin Laden, for a variety of reasons: the sadistic sectarian bloodbath launched by the organizations affiliate in Iraq which alienated so many Muslims around the world, the oppressive reading of Shariah law which very few Muslims desire to live under, the tremendous events in the Arab world leading to the overthrow of Ben-Ali, then Mubarak, and who knows else. But if the
jihadi movement is being diminished, it is not dead.
AQAP is still a menace to American and Western security. Iraq is still seeing shocking levels of violence perpetrated by
Zarqawi's successors. Afghanistan and especially Pakistan are seeing horrific carnage as pressured groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, the
Haqqani network dispatch their suicide bombers to marketplaces. Terrorism influenced and inspired by the now dead Bin Laden is not over. The ideological poison has spread too far and too deep for the death of one man to kill it, or even significantly dent it.
All of which makes the renewed debate about withdrawing from Afghanistan very troubling indeed. A number of leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus recently issued a statement saying "In the wake of
Osama bin
Laden's death, now is the time to shift toward the swift, safe, and responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan." Their calls have been echoed by many liberal newspapers and media outlets, and there have also been reports of such a debate
occurring in the Obama Administration itself.
All of this misses one crucial fact. The United States and its allies were never in Afghanistan
only for
Osama Bin Laden. Apprehending the terrorist leader and his cohorts was of course a large part of the reasoning for war, but it was never the only one. If it was, we would have been out of Afghanistan a long time ago, since it was generally assumed, rightly, that
Osama Bin Laden skipped
Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Battle of
Tora Bora.
The other reasons for war in Afghanistan, which I fully support, were to dismantle and destroy Al
Qaeda and its terrorist network in Afghanistan, and to deny them the opportunity to use Afghanistan as a safe haven from which to train and launch terrorist plots against the West. Denying Al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups a safe haven in Afghanistan necessitated the overthrow of their sponsors and protectors, the Taliban government, and the continual effort to ensure that the Taliban shall never again rule over significant parts of the country.
Peripheral to these national security dominated aims were humanitarian arguments for keeping the Taliban from extending their rule over the country once again. The
organization was one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, and removing that threat from the people of Afghanistan, and the broader region, has always been seen, rightly as a noble and worthy goal.
The killing of
Osama Bin Laden does little to meet most of these goals, and cannot be used as an argument for immediate withdrawal. We should still be aiming for a stable and secure Afghanistan which can eventually defend itself from insurgents and terrorists, and which will not serve as a huge training camp for international terrorists. We should still be aiming to deny the Taliban rule over the country once more. These are still important aims, both for us in the West, and for the people of Afghanistan and the region. The killing of Bin Laden does not diminish these threats.
The Obama Administration, while feeling rightly proud of its accomplishment, should not deviate too far from its previous, and correct, counter-insurgency strategy. Troop withdrawals are due to start in July this year. The administration should not use the killing of Bin Laden to announce a huge withdrawal which would undermine the counter-insurgency effort and hand the Taliban a huge victory. We should stay the course we were on previously, aiming to slowly draw down troops based on conditions in the country, until we can hand over security to the Afghan army, hopefully by the agreed-upon withdrawal date of 2014.
We abandoned Afghanistan twice in the last two decades. Once, after the Soviet withdrawal when the United States had promised to rebuild the country after the war and subsequently reneged, effectively zeroing aid to the country. The result was a brutal civil war between the
mujahideen factions, the rise of the Taliban, and the transformation of the country into a huge
jihadi training camp. The country was abandoned once again after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 when Bush quickly turned his attention to Iraq, turned the country over to the warlords again, and failed to effectively rebuild the impoverished nation, which set the stage for a renewed
neo-Taliban insurgency in the country.
We must learn our lesson from these disasters. Killing
Osama Bin Laden and declaring victory would be to repeat the mistakes of the past. We must use this as an opportunity to leave Afghanistan in a responsible way. If we do not, we will could very well watch as Afghanistan once again becomes a threat to regional and global peace and security.
