Osama's Death: A Great Victory for the U.S.
And it's time to pressure Pakistan.

The execution of Osama bin Laden is much more than a timely reminder of the dangers of killing Americans. It goes a long way to filling a gap exploited by terrorists in U.S. national-security policy, to debunking the terrorist option, and to demystifying the jihadists. American security policy was essentially outlined by Franklin D. Roosevelt in two speeches to the Congress at the beginning and end of 1941. In his State of the Union message in January, he enunciated the goal of the Four Freedoms (of speech and expression, and worship; and from fear and want), and said: "We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and tinkling cymbal would preach the ism of appeasement." And in his war message in December, referring to the attacks at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere, he said: "We will make very certain that this form of treachery never again endanger us." The United States would not be an appeasement power, would promote democratic values and generalized prosperity, and would maintain a deterrent force adequate to dissuade any nation from attacking it.

In general, those goals have been successfully pursued. The U.S. has not appeased its adversaries, and conducted the Cold War as a contest between the "Free World" and the Communists, although the Free World included a number of undemocratic regimes. But democracy triumphed, including in most formerly undemocratic allies, such as Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, South Korea, and most of Latin America. And America's deterrent strength has been such that no country has dared attack it directly since Dec. 7, 1941. The terrorists, with a series of outrages culminating in the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, thought they had found a way round that deterrent force by hatching their plans in failed states and attacking directly with suicide warriors in a way that was difficult to connect to any other country. Even the Afghan Taliban regime, which was in fact implicated in those atrocities, denied all responsibility for them.

Bin Laden's spectacular attack focused the world's attention on the phenomenon of the non-national terrorist adversary, happy to die for the cause. Pres. George W. Bush sounded the right note on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, when he returned to Washington in Air Force One, escorted for the first time in U.S. airspace by Air Force fighter planes, and told the nation and the world that all countries were either "with us or against us" and that "no distinction will be made between terrorists and countries that assist terrorists." This has proved difficult to effect, and Iran continues to be the principal terrorism-supporting state in the world (and is grasping toward a nuclear military capacity). But the defeat of the actual terrorists, though not complete, is now quite comprehensive.

We need only recall bin Laden's belligerent videos, insouciantly delivered to and telecast by al-Jazeera in the aftermath of 9/11, that there would be endless terrorist attacks until the West and its puppet regimes in the Arab world were laid low, and his taunt that Somalia proved the U.S. was decadent and cowardly. He claimed to look forward to death and for a time seemed to mock America by his ability to be heard and to stage occasional lesser outrages in various countries. The fact that he clung to life in utter seclusion, not facing the rigors of cave warfare with his cadres, and gradually lost effectiveness and visibility, was indicative of the general progress against organized terrorism. The banal and unheroic nature of his death exposed him as an impotent poseur who sought to avoid death rather than risking it as he professed to wish and urged upon others, demonstrated the revived quality of much-disparaged U.S. intelligence, and reaffirmed the very high quality and professionalism of U.S. special forces.

These welcome developments come as uprisings around the Arab world, whatever else they may be, are not inspired by a sectarian death wish, a perverted deformation of Islam, or any particular animus against the West, the U.S, or even Israel. It is not clear what elements are behind the uprisings in Egypt and the other countries, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is well disposed to terrorism and murdered Anwar Sadat, but not even these elements were latterly much impressed by al-Qaeda or bin Laden. For a time, he was a perverse sort of holy Robin Hood, an emulator of Che Guevara and other well-born revolutionaries, who had discountenanced the world's greatest power. America's wealth and success and wanton flamboyance aggravated the long-slumbering and retreating Arabs, and bin Laden was an avenger. But bin Laden was a runner whom renown outran, and dispatching him in his bedroom put an immiserating lunatic out of his misery years after he had been substantially defanged.

As almost all commentators have recognized, it was first-class policy management and execution by President Obama and his national-security team, and a very well formulated statement by the president afterward. It is gratifying to everyone and reassuring to some to see that in such matters, Mr. Obama is as highly motivated and as crisply professional and capable a commander-in-chief as any of his predecessors. This is far from the end of problems in the Arab world, and isn't even the end of al-Qaeda, though it is clearly in decline, with less and less frequent incidents and the leadership being harried and hunted all over the world. It lost much support with the completely destructive internecine role it tried to play in Iraq. Suicidal massacres of civilians were never going to have a long stand as a popular technique, but it had a macabre panache that has now been extinguished. But it is no clearer what the Arab Spring really means, and the sight of the interim regime in Cairo playing footsie with Iran and befriending Hamas is disconcerting.

There are also questions about Pakistan's role that are more worrisome than any previous conduct by that fragile and almost unfathomable nuclear power. It is inconceivable that Pakistan's senior military and intelligence services knew nothing of bin Laden's whereabouts, and it is probable that having long thought him potentially useful, they concluded that he was expendable. It had to be the correct decision by the U.S. administration not to consult the Pakistanis at all in advance. That country's support of the Haqqani faction of the Afghan Taliban, about a third of the enemy forces fighting NATO and the Kabul regime, is notorious. And the Pakistani prime minister's much publicized advice to Afghanistan's prickly and devious President Karzai last week to ditch the U.S. in favor of security guarantees from Pakistan and China (for whom he had no color of authority to speak), merely illustrates that "allies" in this part of the world are not what they were in Europe in the times of Winston Churchill and Helmut Kohl.

There remain serious problems with America's simultaneous distrust of and reliance on Pakistan, and its simultaneous effort to destroy and negotiate with the Taliban. There should be some combination of sticks and carrots that would incentivize the Pakistanis to plough a straighter furrow, and entering their country and killing the world's leading terrorist after a 40-minute gunfight, 250 yards from the main Pakistani military academy, has to be usefully educational to bin Laden's hosts.

— Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full. He can be reached at [email protected].

© 2024 Conrad Black