The death of Osama bin Laden has some symbolic value, particularly for theUnited States. A great power exercises influence not just through its military and economic assets, but through its prestige. A power that can be relied on to punish its enemies, no matter how long it takes, and reward its friends will be respected, and that respect will figure into the calculations of other nations as they pursue their interests.
Killing bin Laden may go a little way to repairing our prestige by undoing the recent foreign policy mistakes in the Middle East. Apart from that slim possibility, however, the practical effects of bin Laden’s death will be minimal.
There is much wishful thinking right now about the negative impact of his demise on the morale of al Qaeda and other jihadist outfits. Yet the flashpoint of al Qaeda activity is no longer in Afghanistan but in Yemen. Then there are the other, more dangerous groups such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, and Hamas in Gaza, all of which share al Qaeda’s aim of attacking the West and using violence to change our behavior.
Meanwhile, in Egypt the Muslim Brothers, the theoretical godfather of modern jihadism, are enjoying new political power and support from the people.
And, as the recently thwarted terrorist plot in Germany demonstrates, there are an unknown number of autonomous jihadist cells throughout the world that will not stop plotting and attempting terrorist attacks just because bin Laden is now a “martyr.” Religious movements pursuing spiritual aims are not dependent on the life of any one or even a thousand mortal men.
Even more important is what the operation reveals about the duplicity of Pakistan. President Obama’s diplomatic nod to that country’s cooperation can’t hide the obvious: it is highly unlikely that bin Laden could have holed up for six years in a million-dollar compound with 12-foot high barbed-wire fences, in a city of 100,000 that hosts Pakistan’s most prestigious military academy, without the knowledge and sufferance of highly placed Pakistani military and security officials.
That’s why the operation was kept secret from our so-called allies until the very last minute. But we know Pakistan has been playing a double game for almost a decade, cooperating just enough to keep receiving billions in aid and military hardware, at the same time supporting and protecting the insurgents and terrorists killing our troops in Afghanistan.
More broadly, removing bin Laden from the scene will do little to change the delusional interpretation of jihadism that has compromised our policies no matter which political party is in power. This is the idea that Islamists have “hijacked” the “religion of peace” in order to pursue their totalitarian aims.
So far, though, we haven’t seen huge demonstrations in the Muslim world celebrating the death of a man who brought such disorder and opprobrium to Muslims, despite a plunge in support for bin Laden and al Qaeda – a result not of his “distortion” of Islam, but of attacks on Muslims in Afghanistan.
But, then, we never have seen over the past decade mass demonstrations by “moderate” Muslims protesting the Islamist distortion of Islamic doctrine, or marching to condemn terrorist violence against Westerners.
What we have seen are large celebrations of the 9/11 attacks, and violent riots about various perceived “insults” to Islam and Mohammed. Nor was bin Laden a fringe figure like pseudo-Christians David Koresh or Jim Jones, a bearded maniac living in a cave and concocting bizarre interpretations of Islamic doctrine. On the contrary, bin Laden knew Islam’s doctrine, history, and theology. In his writingsand those of his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, we find arguments for jihadist violence buttressed with quotations from the Koran and references to other Islamic texts. And these arguments are consistent with the views of other respected Muslim figures.
Even someone armed with a dull Occam’s razor can figure out from all this evidence that far from being outside the Islamic tradition, the jihadists are squarely within it in the view of millions of Muslims. That helps explain Pakistan’s support for the Taliban, and the billions of dollars flowing to jihadist organizations from Gulf petrocracies. Yet we persist in imposing our materialist philosophy on a spiritual struggle, and rationalizing away the religious dimension of jihadism.