The death of Osama bin Laden will not change the nature of the threat posed by
al-Qaida and its affiliates in the short-term. In fact, bin Laden’s death,
coupled with the nationalistdriven – not Islamist-driven – Arab Spring, could
lead bin Laden’s followers to enhance efforts to attack Western targets in order
to demonstrate that the global jihadist movement remains a potent
force.
However, as the Arab world’s largely muted reaction to bin Laden’s
death attests, the ideology of al-Qaida is waning.
The death of bin Laden
offers a symbolic moment of opportunity for key players in the region. They
should all now utilize this moment to reassess and recalibrate the means by
which they pursue their interests, as well as their regional postures and
relationships – from the United States and Israel, to Pakistan and the nations
of the Arab Spring, to Islamist groups like Hamas.
THE IMPORTANCE of the
symbolism of bin Laden’s death is perhaps most palpable in the US, where al-
Qaida’s mastermind orchestrated attacks that killed more than 3,000 Americans.
With any clear notion of “success” in Afghanistan becoming increasingly opaque,
the death of bin Laden offers a chance for President Barack Obama to begin to
set in motion policies that would draw down the US’s military presence in the
wartorn nation, having achieved the war’s most critical objective: decapitating
the leadership and effectiveness of al-Qaida and its affiliates. The trove of
documents seized at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is likely to
lead to further intelligence and military successes. On the heels of such
achievements, Obama can confidently begin to withdraw American troops, but in
doing so he must ensure that key components of stability for the territory
remain in place. The US should encourage dialogue between Afghan President Hamid
Karzai and the Taliban, even as it continues to track down the al-Qaida leaders
which the Taliban has aided and harbored.
Key to any American withdrawal
will be a negotiated agreement with the Taliban, provided the agreement insures
that: '
• Al-Qaida will not be allowed to operate from Afghani soil;
• A basic
level of human rights and shared dignity for all people of Afghanistan is
maintained;
• The integrity, security and stability of the neighboring nuclear
armed state – Pakistan – is preserved.
That said, the US-Pakistan
relationship has been questioned vociferously in the wake of the operation that
killed bin Laden. Obama’s recent remarks that he was likely aided by a network
of support in Pakistan, and the fact that his compound was found not far from
Pakistan’s top military training facility, raises legitimate questions regarding
the integrity of Pakistan’s military elites, if not their competence –
particularly that of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.
The
United States is now in a bind. Fail to maintain a close working relationship
with Pakistan – including the annual $3 billion in aid supplied by Congress for
Pakistan’s military – and withdrawing from Afghanistan will become a much more
difficult task. Furthermore, Pakistan’s delicate political stability, and its
nuclear arms, demand vigilant US attention to ensure that those weapons do not
wind up in the hands of terrorists. However, as the US considers recalibrating
its policies vis-àvis Pakistan, officials in Islamabad have a bright spotlight
on them today.
In an interview in 2008, former Pakistani general and
then-president Pervez Musharraf told the television program 60 Minutes: “We are
not particularly looking for [Osama bin Laden], but we are operating against
terrorists and al-Qaida and militant Taliban. And in the process, obviously,
combined, maybe we are looking for him also.”
Such unconvincing answers
can no longer be acceptable, either to the US or to Pakistan, if their
relationship is to endure. Pakistan should recognize the tide in the region is
toward Arab nationalism and empowerment, and away from Islamism. To demonstrate
that they are doing so, they should make announcements of their own that they
have found figures such as al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri and others who are
likely in similar hideouts in unsuspecting neighborhoods in Pakistan.
The
country has legitimate security concerns in Afghanistan, but it must now operate
above the fray with the US to bring about a solution to the war in Afghanistan
that meets both the American and Pakistani objectives.
EVIDENCE THAT bin
Laden’s ideology has failed the Middle East is appearing throughout the region.
There were sporadic protests against his killing by US forces, but most people
were busy in other protests – against their corrupt rulers. It is prescient that
bin Laden’s message to the youth – to rise up against the US and Israel and
restore Islamic law to the nations of the region – could be so completely
ignored. The current Arab Spring has been about rising up against the regional
despots who have not provided the kind of opportunity and freedom that the West
enjoys, and that bin Laden detested.
Today, the people of Syria are
demanding change not through the suicide-bombing means of al-Qaida, but by
chanting “salmiya” – peaceful – in the streets. Going forward, the reforming
nations of the region, and the US, should take lessons from this rejection of
al-Qaida’s ideology.
As the nations craft new systems of government, they
must be focused on genuine political freedom and economic opportunity that
restores the dignity for which the protesters yearn. Furthermore, the US must be
clear in its support for the development of such policies, and its opposition to
the indiscriminate killings carried out not only by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in
Libya, but now by Bashar Assad’s in Syria as well.
FINALLY, THE death of
bin Laden should send a clear message to Islamists: Violent extremism will not
be tolerated in the new Middle East, and no terrorist leader is immune to bin
Laden’s fate. In particular, Hamas should be paying attention to this message –
and perhaps it is. After bin Laden’s death, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
made headlines by condemning the killing of bin Laden, whom he described as “an
Arab holy warrior.”
The West’s condemnation of Haniyeh’s statement was
swift, particularly as Hamas was intending to sign a unity agreement with Fatah,
in a pact that seeks to maintain Western aid for the newly united Palestinian
political front.
Days later, after the unity agreement signing ceremony
in Cairo, Hamas’s Damascus-based chief Khaled Mashaal articulated a much more
moderate message, stating, “We are talking now about a common national agenda.
The world should deal with what we are working toward now, the national
political program... a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its
capital, without any settlements or settlers, not an inch of land swaps and
respecting the right of return.”
However, when pressed on whether an
agreement along these lines would be considered an end to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mashaal responded, “I don’t want to talk about
that.”
If Hamas is to survive as a political entity seeking the national
aspirations of the Palestinian people, he will need to answer that question. The
transition from terrorist to politician requires a renunciation of violence and
the removal of the clause that calls for Israel’s destruction from Hamas’s
charter.
Last weekend, recognizing that international aid for the
Palestinian Authority was in jeopardy if Hamas maintained its hard-line views
and support for violence, Mashaal sounded an even more moderate tone, stating,
“First allow the Palestinian people to live on their lands freely... to
establish their independent state ... then ask the Palestinian people, its
government and leaders about their position towards [recognizing]
Israel.”
In the face of what appears to be a moderating trend within
Hamas, the US and Israel should not allow their skepticism to create undue
roadblocks to Hamas’s maturation from terrorism to politics. Instead, a
wait-and-see policy is in order, one that pressures Mashaal’s Hamas to match his
new moderate rhetoric by following in the footsteps of Fatah, permanently
renouncing violence as a means of attaining statehood. This would be a first
good step toward being taken seriously by the international
community.
THE PEOPLES of the Middle East understand the power of
symbolism. The videos released by the US depicting bin Laden rehearsing video
remarks with his beard dyed jet black indicates that he was well-aware of his
own selfimage, and the power of demonstrating a symbol of a vibrant jihadist
leader. Now, in his death, more potent symbols are being conveyed: violence and
extremism fail the people of the region, misread their aspirations for freedom
and opportunity, and will ultimately be defeated, regardless of how long it
takes.
The writer is professor of international relations at the Center
for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches international negotiation and Middle
Eastern studies.