Hussein Ibish,
One of the oddest elements of US President Barack Obama’s announcement of the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a rush by many noted Middle East experts to downplay or dismiss the significance of this achievement. As rumors of the American accomplishment circulated in the hour before Obama’s speech, and immediately afterward, many commentators rushed to claim that bin Laden was essentially an irrelevant figure and that his death would change nothing significant in Middle East politics.
 
These claims are misguided. Even though it’s true that bin Laden’s politics have become increasingly unappealing to the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, and Al Qaeda has played no role at all in the “Arab Spring,” not even knowing how to react to it rhetorically, this analysis fails to recognize the importance of narratives.
 
For militant and extremist groups, defeat is disastrous, and this is an enormous defeat for Al Qaeda. The group’s political fortunes were moribund following the rapid overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and were revived only by the ill-considered invasion of Iraq, which gave it a new battleground, rationalization and lease on life for a number of years.
 
The loss of this vital symbolic figure, no matter how impotent he had become in reality, will undoubtedly be another significant blow to Salafist-Jihadist ideology. They may have gained a martyr, but they’ve lost the image of a defiant leader able to combat the Soviet Union and America alike with impunity. His deputy, the Egyptian fanatic Ayman Zawahiri, lacks the charismatic appeal bin Laden had among certain extremists, and he has no apparent successor.
 
By contrast, this is a colossal victory not just for the United States but for Obama himself. The president faces significant challenges to reelection next year, most particularly economic challenges, and above all continuing high rates of unemployment. However, it will now be impossible for Republicans to seriously harass him on national security grounds. A second Obama term seems increasingly likely. Even if there is a violent response by bin Laden’s followers, most Americans will chalk this up as the inevitable price of a much-cherished and long-overdue accomplishment.
 
Along with economic problems, the most serious threat to Obama’s possible reelection was always the possibility of another major terrorist attack against the United States. That issue is now effectively off the table, since he can claim to be responsible for what former President George W. Bush was unable to do in seven years: bring the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks to justice. A violent response would be more likely to unite Americans behind their president than undermine his national security credentials, as another major terrorist attack otherwise would have.
 
Those in the Arab world, most notably Hamas, who mourn the loss of bin Laden and praise him as a “holy warrior,” are damaging their credibility with both Westerners and Muslims alike. Similarly, Western apologists for Hamas who argue that the organization is, at heart, “moderate” and simply reacting to an ongoing Israeli occupation and siege have been exposed as foolish dupes of a genuinely extremist organization with repugnant views.
 
The rush to dismiss the importance of bin Laden’s death is born of three major impulses. First, there is a desire among some to try to demonstrate their sophistication by proffering faux-counterintuitive analysis to what is obviously an extremely important development to say the least. This is fake “insight” posing as special expertise.
 
Second, there’s an ongoing impulse by some to deny the importance of extremist elements in the Islamic world. Although they’re small and fringe, the Salafist-Jihadist movement, of which Al Qaeda has been the vanguard, have a disproportionate impact because of their willingness to kill and die without restraint. The fact that most people in the Arab and Muslim world can’t stand them doesn’t mean they don’t have a constituency or an impact. Denying this is pointless, but some analysts seem to have a real investment in it.
 
Finally, there’s an element of undisguised and unworthy disappointment in some circles. Some right-wing supporters of Bush are desperately trying to spin this as a belated Bush victory, and deprive Obama of the credit. Others, particularly on the extreme left, are simply allergic to any major American foreign policy success. And there are those who are, or at least should be, embarrassed by the reaction of Hamas and other extremist groups and therefore wish to dismiss the entire affair as largely irrelevant.
 
The fact is, however, because narratives are important, given that politics is largely based on perceptions and symbols, the significance of this development can hardly be overstated. Barack Obama and his administration deserve unqualified praise, and that should come first and foremost from the hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims around the world who were the first and primary targets in Osama bin Laden’s vicious crosshairs.

Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at www.ibishblog.com.