The Hill News

Everything that can be said about the short-term strategic implications of Bin Laden’s killing on al Qaeda, not to mention the domestic implications for President Obama’s popularity, has already been uttered in the last 48 hours. What is not clear, however, is what kind of an impact this event will have on East-West relations in the long run. I believe it is possible to fashion a momentous turning point, for the better, out of this killing, but only if we heed the lessons of history.

History teaches us that the elimination of the leader is one of the most effective ways to deal a strong blow to a terrorist organization, and this is especially true for those movements which rely heavily on the charisma of that leader to disseminate their message.  Neither the Shining Path nor the PKK were the same after the capture and imprisonment of their leaders.  The Tamil Tigers defeat in 2009 can be at least partly attributed to Prabharakan’s death. The Red Army Faction! after the suicides of Baader and Meinhof (as well as other leaders of the group) was a ghost of its former self. Such examples give us much reason to believe that the murder of bin Laden may indeed have been a very painful blow to al Qaeda.

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