ANALYSIS:The killing of bin Laden is a huge vindication for the US president's low-key, calm but stealthy approach to fighting terrorism, writes LARA MARLOWE
AS REPORTS of Osama bin Laden's death began to circulate on Sunday night, university students, tourists and residents of the US capital raced to the White House. By the time President Barack Obama made the announcement, just before midnight, perhaps more than a thousand had gathered to chant "USA, USA" and sing an off-key Star Spangled Banner.
In contrast to the jubilation outside the wrought-iron gates, the US president was calm and solemn, smiling not once during his 10-minute speech.
Only three-quarters of the way through the careful text did he note that “the death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda”.
Bin Laden’s death also marks the most significant achievement to date of the Obama presidency. Not since Obama’s election and inauguration had the country known such euphoria – better than the Nobel Peace Prize, which many claimed was unwarranted.
Obama has succeeded where his two predecessors failed, in killing the man whom Bill Clinton declared as early as 1998 to be Public Enemy No 1.
Until yesterday, Republicans constantly questioned Obama’s handling of foreign, defence and counter-terrorism policy. Henceforward, his security credentials are beyond reproach, his chances of re-election greatly enhanced.
Bin Laden’s death seemed to dwarf quarrels between Republicans and Democrats over Obama’s birth certificate, budgets and the deficit.
It made Republican presidential hopefuls who’ve so often assailed Obama’s alleged lack of leadership look like Lilliputians.
The Obamas’ previously scheduled dinner with congressmen in the East Room of the White House last night was almost certainly the president’s most cordial meeting with domestic adversaries.
But the economy will continue to be Obama’s Achilles’ heel. George Bush snr executed a short, successful war against Saddam Hussein in 1991, then lost the presidency to Clinton 18 months later.
Like George W Bush before him, Obama stressed that “our war is not against Islam”. But unlike the Bush administration, which allowed the execution of Saddam Hussein to descend into ghoulish farce, the Obama administration announced that bin Laden had been given an immediate burial, as is the custom in Islam, at sea.
Without a tinge of jingoism or preaching, Obama transformed bin Laden’s death into a plea for renewed unity and a parable of the triumph of good over evil.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks which killed 3,000 Americans, he noted, “no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family”.
That unity had since “frayed”, he noted.
The death of bin Laden was “a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people,” Obama said. “America can do whatever we set our mind to . . . We can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are.”
The mood was typified by a New York City fireman who survived 9/11 and told CNN: “I hope to God [bin Laden] rots in hell. I hope tonight we start to put the past 10 years behind us.”
By yesterday morning, a country that has recently focused on lost jobs, high petrol prices and underwater mortgages basked in a burst of self-confidence, a “Yes We Can” spirit.
Bin Laden’s death vindicated the slow, pragmatic “Obama method” and provided a partial rehabilitation of intelligence agencies discredited by torture, bungled missions and failed predictions.
Senior administration officials who gave a background briefing at midnight in the White House said they began watching one of bin Laden’s couriers four years ago.
They followed him to the compound in Pakistan, and by the end of last summer, the CIA began working with President Obama on assessments that bin Laden might be living there. Yet the President waited eight months before giving the order for the raid.
The temptation to attack the compound in the run-up to last November’s midterm elections – a huge political setback for Obama – must have been great. But Obama seems to have learned from his predecessors’ errors.
“It took many months to run this thread to ground,” Obama noted.
He was determined to avoid a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s botched attempt to rescue 52 American diplomats in Iran in 1980, in which eight Americans died.
Instead, US special forces practised trial runs. In March and April, Obama chaired five meetings of the National Security Council devoted to the raid on bin Laden’s compound, before giving the order on April 29th. In the age of WikiLeaks, “experts” on al-Qaeda continued to report that bin Laden’s trail had gone cold. “Only a very small group of people inside our own government knew of this operation in advance,” said one of the midnight briefers.
For months, Obama continued to absorb criticism for alleged inaction, knowing all along of the secret plans – just as he had with the Israeli-American computer worm sabotage of the Iranian nuclear programme by the so-called Stuxnet virus.
“There’s no doubt that al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us,” Mr Obama said.
Immediately after bin Laden’s death, the US State Department and Interpol issued alerts of heightened threats to US interests. A US Congressional Research report issued in January said al-Qaeda has become “a diffuse global network and philosophical movement composed of dispersed nodes with varying degrees of independence” present in more than 70 countries.
Attention now turns to bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and especially Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen hiding in Yemen and the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which is now deemed the most serious threat to the US.
Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan, where bin Laden fostered the rule of the Taliban from 1996 until he disappeared in the mountains of Tora Bora in 2001. Sixty per cent of Americans want the US to leave Afghanistan now.
President Obama has promised to begin a withdrawal in July. Osama bin Laden’s death could increase domestic pressure to end that war. But by weakening al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies, it could also make it easier to draw the Afghan war to a more rapid close.
Lara Marlowe is
Washington Correspondent