Bin Laden's Demise And Its Implications

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BIN LADEN'S DEMISE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS



Report on an FPRI Briefing



by Tally Helfont



Edward Turzanski, an FPRI scholar with extensive experience

in the intelligence community, noted that two main

perspectives are coming out of the Obama administration on

the heels of Bin Laden's death: the first by CIA director,

Leon Panetta, who said that we can indeed expect some sort

of retaliation against us in the future; and the second by

the president's advisor for homeland security, John Brennan,

who said that we can expect al Qaeda to begin engaging in

intense infighting because of the lack of popularity of the

organization's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. Turzanski

explained that al Qaeda "has suffered tremendously as a

brand name" as a result of the Sahwa (awakening) Movement in

western Anbar Province and of General David Petraeus's

successful surge. Bin Laden had, it was widely believed,

receded into the background in recent years, becoming more a

titular head, who, though certainly an important symbolic

figure, was less and less involved in operational planning.

He conceded that while a retaliatory attack may come at some

point in the future, al Qaeda lacks the organizational

cohesion and expertise to strike back at us on the scale of

9/11, at least in the short run. Turzanski concluded by

saying that the demise of Bin Laden is "a pretty good thing

for us. It does bring some measure of closure for those who

lost loved ones on 9/11_ and it demonstrates a resolve and

an expertise that, quite frankly, people forgot that the

United States possesses."



Barak Mendelsohn, author of Combating Jihadism (University

of Chicago Press, 2009), argued that the most important

thing that we can take away, especially in light of the

"Arab Spring," is how marginal the support al Qaeda and its

radical agenda have throughout the Middle East. The fact

that "people are going to the streets and demanding freedom

and democracy," he said, amounts to infidelity in Bin

Laden's view; for al Qaeda, "democracy is heresy."

Mendelsohn explained that al Qaeda's support was at its peak

in 2003, and at that point, it was still able to convince

people around the Muslim world of its narrative that an

"American crusader attack on Islam" was truly taking place.

However, as al Qaeda started killing many Muslims

themselves, "the narrative didn't hold anymore." As such,

Iraq and the attacks in Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia began

to devastate al Qaeda's reputation and reduced the appeal of

its agenda. The death of Bin Laden not only shattered the

myth that he was invincible but also marks the decline of al

Qaeda central.



Sumit Ganguly, the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian

Cultures and Civilizations and Professor of Political

Science at Indiana University - Bloomington, noted that

India's reaction to Bin Laden's death was one of

incredulity. The Indians had long maintained that there was

complicity on the part of Pakistani regimes in protecting

Bin Laden, rejecting the notion that he was living in the

western borderland of Pakistan in a cave. Ganguly noted

that, though it rarely made it to the American press, the

Indians maintained that Bin Laden had been on kidney

dialysis for some time, necessitating a certain amount of

medical infrastructure to survive on a daily basis. In fact,

considering India was very adamant about the fact that Bin

Laden was in the shelter of various Pakistani elements,

there was a certain amount of gloating going on in India,

according to Ganguly, over the fact that their assertion had

been confirmed. He added that there is "also a kind of

sneaking admiration for the manner in which American Special

Forces carried out this operation, with such extraordinary

skill and dexterity." Ganguly asserted that as far as

Pakistanis are concerned, it is utterly implausible that

they were unaware of Bin Laden's whereabouts, especially

since his compound was located barely a few meters from

Pakistan's Military Academy. If this were true, it would

suggest that the ISI "is either remarkably maladroit and

remarkably inept, or they were downright complicit."

Pakistani spin doctoring of this revelation as an

intelligence failure, he said, "borders between the

laughable and the bizarre."



Michael Noonan, the Managing Director of FPRI's Program on

National Security Studies, noted that according to open

source reporting, the Navy Seals team that killed Bin Laden

confiscated five computers, ten hard drives, and over one

hundred thumb drives, CDs, and numerous documents, adding

that it will be interesting to see how the exploitation of

this material contributes to U.S. efforts to take down other

key players in al Qaeda. Likewise, preliminary assessments

of some of these materials seem to suggest that Bin Laden's

role might have in fact been more operational than had been

previously thought, contrary to the conventional wisdom

within the intelligence community. As far as Afghanistan is

concerned, Noonan said, a key thing to watch for is the

Pakistani reaction, specifically because there had already

been a steady cooling of relations between Pakistan and the

United States. Any further deterioration of this

relationship could jeopardize our campaign in Afghanistan,

considering that the U.S. has been moving a tremendous

percentage of its supplies by land across Pakistan. However,

Noonan suggested that it may in fact be time for the U.S. to

leave Afghanistan, responding not only to Hamid Karzai's own

statements along these lines but also to the stalemate that

currently exists in negotiation with the Taliban. The 2001

Status of Forces Agreement was very clear about those

responsible for the attacks on 9/11, "If we are able to take

care of al Qaeda and divorce that from larger issues in

Afghanistan_ we might as well." Noonan concluded by saying,

"refereeing a civil war in Afghanistan is not in our

national interest." Taking into account the recent

reshuffling that occurred within the Administration

involving General Petraeus, Director Panetta, and Secretary

Gates along with recent events, "this could very well be the

first step in disengaging from Afghanistan."



Theodore Friend, author of Indonesian Destinies (Harvard

University Press, 2003) and of the forthcoming book Woman,

Man, and God in Modern Islam, responded to a question on the

reaction of the Muslim world to the news of Bin Laden's

death by noting that there is no single, unified response.

Friend suggested that the Arab uprisings that have occurred

throughout Middle East, and more specifically the efforts to

throw off the yoke of authoritarian rulers, were fifty years

overdue. He expressed his hope that these efforts would

continue and flourish, citing the Egyptian example with its

strong military establishment in particular. Two aspects

that Friend believed are being neglected in analyses of the

impact of these events on the region include economics and

the role of women. Economically, Turkey's green capitalism

(Islamic not ecological) and the economic prosperity it has

generated is a development that is underreported but

deserves attention, in Friend's view. In regards to women,

there remains a lack of progress in Muslim countries, and

what Friend referred to as "intentional oppression and

theologized diminution of the standing of women and their

opportunities." He was saddened to say that, according to

his assessment, there is little promise to be seen on this

front in the so-called Arab Spring.



Eric Trager, who spent much of the past few months in Egypt

working on his doctoral dissertation, suggested that, as

indicated by his interviews of senior leaders of the Muslim

Brotherhood's Guidance Office as well as its youth movement,

there remains a deep hostility towards the United States.

Trager said this sentiment was particularly evident in their

perceptions of who perpetrated the September 11th attacks,

which at best doubted the involvement of Muslims and at

worst, believed the entire event to be a fabrication of the

United States as an excuse to attack the Muslims. Trager

recounted that when asked what the Muslim Brotherhood is

for, they responded that the Brotherhood is "for moderate

Islam." When asked to elaborate, they qualified, "Well, we

are not al Qaeda." Trager explained that while al Qaeda is

in fact unpopular in Egypt, the United States is more

unpopular in the eyes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the

like. This reality is apparent not only in the Brotherhood's

statements in response to Bin Laden's killing, but also in

many Egyptian dailies like al Masri al Yom, which equate the

United States with al Qaeda, saying that the U.S. has in

fact killed more people in more countries than the latter.

Trager commented that these moral equivalencies "crystallize

the challenge that America faces in the moving ahead in what

may well be the new Middle East." He cautioned that while

the uprisings have brought forth a new, liberal, anti-

authoritarian set of youth activists; these activists still

hold deeply anti-American views.



Christopher Swift, author of the forthcoming book, The

Fighting Vanguard: Local Insurgencies in the Global Jihad

suggested that Bin Laden's death would transform the war on

terror without ending it. With the decline of al Qaeda

central and its operational capability over the last few

years, the emerging threat to U.S. interests comes from two

primary sources: the first is from Salafi jihadi syndicates

like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which appears to be adopting

more global ambitions; and the second is from global

jihadist subsidiaries like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

(AQAP). Both groups are de-territorialized politically, de-

localized ideologically, and historically have demonstrated

a high level of operational integration with al Qaeda

central. It is Swift's sense that the strategic center of

what remains of al Qaeda central's global insurgency has

already been shifting away from the Afghanistan - Pakistan

theater to Saudi Arabia and more importantly, Yemen.

Finally, Swift noted that AQAP's "growing prominence within

the constellation of contemporary Islamic militant groups

may signal an important evolution within the al Qaeda

movement itself." Rather than colonizing and co-opting

conflicts in distant lands, which, thus far, has been the

modus operandi of al Qaeda central, AQAP is operating in its

own society. Rather than challenging and usurping the

indigenous social and political structures, Swift says, this

group has grafted itself onto them. This model is more

adaptive, resilient, and produces a more tenacious

adversary, something the U.S. should be weary of in the

future as it tries to prioritize and distinguish between its

various threats and enemies.



Stephen Gale, the Chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism and

Counter-Terrorism, argued that the impact of Bin Laden's

death is not to be measured by the response of leaders of

Muslim countries or even of the ummah, but rather by the

legacy of terrorism, which doesn't require a broad base. The

real question, from his point of view, is will this motivate

those relatively small groups not just to exact revenge but

also to use Bin Laden's death as a rationale for extending

the campaign of jihad? Gale noted that from al Qaeda's point

of view, September 11th was a failure. He suggested that it

is only a matter of time until they plan an event that

achieves their goals and that the death of Bin Laden is not

going to bring about any transformation in the Middle East,

releasing people from the obligation to carry out jihad.



David Danelo, a Marine Corps veteran who served in the Iraq

War, stated that in his view, "Bin Laden's death marks the

single most significant moral victory that we have achieved

thus far in the war on terror." Referencing various other

memorable achievements accomplished by the United States,

Danelo argued that none compared to victory embodied in this

achievement, as illustrated in the triumphant responses of

millions of Americans across the country at hearing the news

from President Obama. Danelo noted, "There is an open-ended

question of how we sustain this narrative of moral victory

in the United States." He also suggested that the Obama

administration derived a policy dividend from this

successful mission, and how it uses this policy dividend

will be the question that defines the 2012 upcoming

election.



Lawrence Husick, a specialist in technology and terrorism,

noted the need for our country, and for the West in general,

to reevaluate our grand strategy for security. Husick argued

that Bin Laden invented and built al Qaeda by using the

expertise he gained in construction and his understanding of

supply chains and logistics prior to his radicalization. Bin

Laden essentially used his organization "to exert leverage

where he could not exert force directly." Husick explained

that this, in its essence, is the textbook definition of

terrorism. He went on to assert that "Bin Laden was one of

the few figures in history, who in fact changed the world

and he did so by inventing al Qaeda" and its methods. Today,

al Qaeda has metastasized; it has become a brand with

franchises but without a central agency. These franchises

have taken up the banner and the ideology to the extent that

it suits their purposes and are working, according to their

own schedule, to strike at us. This is why it is critical

that we rework our security strategy, not simply in terms of

offense-defense, but also in terms of sustainability and

survivability.



Jack Tomarchio, a former deputy undersecretary of

intelligence in the Department of Homeland Security, noted

that, though al Qaeda's franchises are much more active than

al Qaeda central, which has been systematically taken down

using drone strikes and other techniques, al Qaeda's number

two, Ayman al Zawahiri is still at large, describing his

role as being primarily operational and much like that of a

chief operating officer. Tomarchio referred to the toppling

of the Arab regimes as being a primary goal of al Qaeda, and

though this has occurred over the course of only a few

weeks, it was for very different reasons and using very

different means than envisaged by al Qaeda. The Arab Street

was successful where al Qaeda was not. This is telling about

al Qaeda's narrative and its lack of compatibility with the

demands that motivated the Arab uprisings. However,

Tomarchio cautioned that we must remain vigilant and act in

a prudent manner moving forward, taking into account that

future attacks are likely to be carried out by radicalized

individuals both domestically and abroad.



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