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# Al-Qaida and the Arab spring: after bin Laden
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/al-qaida-and-arab-spring-after-bin-laden/
- Published: 2011-05-05T23:05:32.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:11:41.000Z
- Description: The death of the al-Qaida leader is a symbolic moment. But far more important is that the future of his movement - and much else besides - is closely tied to the success or failure of the Arab risings.
- Author: Paul Rogers
- Tags: Conflict & security, #Migrated, India & South Asia, Politics & activism, globalisation, Democracy and government, conflict, Pakistan, International politics, global security, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 17:11

The euphoria in the United States that greeted Osama bin Laden's [death](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330?ref=opendemocracy.net) in Pakistan early on 2 May 2011 reflects how far he had been the [focus](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south%5Fasia/155236.stm?ref=opendemocracy.net) for the “war on terror” declared by George W Bush in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The al-Qaida leader's actual role in the movement may have diminished in recent years, but his mere existence was an enduring source of American dismay: a living symbol of Washington’s inability to kill or capture its chief global adversary (see "[America vs al-Qaida: the widening war](http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/america-vs-al-qaida-widening-war)", 11 November 2010).

This national wound was revealed by President Obama’s differential arguments over Iraq and Afghanistan: the former was a bad war (of choice) which now demanded the withdrawal of US forces, whereas the latter was a good war (of necessity) because it connected directly with [9/11](http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) through the continuing presence of al-Qaida.

Osama bin Laden’s active leadership al-Qaida had long receded, though he remained an [iconic](http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-islamicworld/article%5F69.jsp) figure during a decade of the movement’s [dispersal](http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/al%5Fqaida%5Ffrom%5Fcentre%5Fto%5Fperiphery). There is now too little residual connection between the Taliban and al-Qaida. The Obama administration’s signals of willingness to negotiate a progressive withdrawal from Afghanistan too, even if it [involves](http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/afghanistan-echoes-of-vietnam) talking to the Taliban, may reflect its understanding of this reality.

The administration's problem in pursuing this strategy has been that the Republican right - sharing and (via the media) amplifying the view of many Americans that the Taliban and al-Qaida are interchangeable - would depict any lessening of military [commitment](www.opendemocracy.net/mariano-aguirre/vietnam-to-iraq-and-afpak-traps-of-history) in Afghanistan as a sign of presidential weakness. Bin Laden’s death, in removing al-Qaida’s [figurehead](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/osama-bin-laden-terrorist-leader-who-waged-jihad-against-jews-and-crusaders-and-ordered-the-attacks-of-11-september-2001-2277996.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) and breaking the Afghanistan-9/11 connection, partially resolves that problem: Obama now has an opportunity to speed up the withdrawal before the presidential-election campaign for 2012 gets underway (see "[Afghanistan: between war and politics](http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/afghanistan-between-war-and-politics)", 28 April 2011).

**The predicament**

This domestic American dimension throws light on the viability of al-Qaida after the death of a [leader](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/?ref=opendemocracy.net) whom the course of the campaign had made peripheral. It is worth at this point recalling the key [aims](http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-middle%5Feast%5Fpolitics/al-qaida%5F3200.jsp) of the al-Qaida movement:

• to evict “crusader” forces from Islamic lands

• to terminate the House of Saud and replace with “true” Islamist rule

• to end and replace other unacceptable regimes, especially in Egypt

• to oppose and eliminate the “Zionist entity”

• to support local Islamist movements, such as in Thailand and Chechnya.

These are all short-term aims measured in decades and imply a century-long [struggle](http://www.versobooks.com/books/32-messages-to-the-world?ref=opendemocracy.net) to create a pure new Islamist caliphate.

In none of these aims - excepting the departure of the US uniformed military from Saudi Arabia - has al-Qaida made serious progress. At the same time, the movement was greatly aided by the George W Bush administration's excessive [concentration](www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/america-and-worlds-jungle) on military responses, especially the spectacularly counterproductive [occupation](http://www.versobooks.com/books/257-257-the-occupation?ref=opendemocracy.net) of Iraq.

Barack Obama, inheriting the [toxic](www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/bush-to-obama-toxic-legacy) legacy left by his predecessor, has followed a more cautious policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now also in [Libya](http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/libya-and-decade%E2%80%99s-war). This has already posed difficulties for the diffuse al-Qaida movement; but a much greater problem for it, transcending the death of Osama bin Laden, is the [Arab spring](http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-hayes/arab-spring-protest-power-prospect).

**The choice**

In the al-Qaida cosmology, the corrupt regimes of the Arab Islamic world were to be humbled by the radical and violent actions of a determined vanguard. Instead, non-violent and courageous demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of citizens have ended autocracies in Tunisia and Egypt, and [threaten](http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/libya-bahrain-and-arab-spring) others.

The effect of these protests has been to [reduce](http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democratising-the-muslim-world) al-Qaida to a spectator in a way that is immensely disturbing to its ideologues. Its influence lingers, and it can yet make some [progress](www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/al-qaida-yemen-factor-0) in Yemen, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Maghreb; the anti-American mood in much of Pakistan may also bring more recruits. But even [Yemen](www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-travails-of-yemen-unity) is to an extent peripheral to al-Qaida's main areas of intended operation, and Afghanistan and Pakistan are hardly central to its worldview of a new caliphate centred on the holy places. In the long term this is a far greater problem for al-Qaida than the loss of Osama bin Laden, who now in any case can be represented as a martyr to the [far enemy](http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item1167753/?site%5Flocale=en%5FGB&ref=opendemocracy.net).

Against this canvas, some of al-Qaida’s [strategists](http://www.lawrencewright.com/art-zawahiri.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) feel both fear and hope. The fear is that the Arab spring is the prelude of real [change](www.opendemocracy.net/nadim-shehadi/arab-revolt-transformation-to-transition) \- and that emancipation, equity and democracy combine to change the face of the Arab world. If that happens, al-Qaida will eventually [fade](www.opendemocracy.net/asef-bayat/egypt-and-post-islamist-middle-east) into mere memory.

The hope within al-Qaida is that the [aspirations](http://www.opendemocracy.net/khaled-hroub/arab-third-way-beyond-dictators-and-islamists) embodied in the Arab spring are dashed, and that it can [benefit](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/03/think%5Fagain%5Fal%5Fqaeda?ref=opendemocracy.net) from the ensuing deep disillusion. If autocratic rule is maintained in Syria, [Saudi Arabia](www.opendemocracy.net/madawi-al-rasheed/saudi-complex-power-vs-rights), Bahrain and Yemen (and if it returns in Egypt) then the movement and its disparate associates will again have their day. After the failure of [democratic](www.opendemocracy.net/vidar-helgesen/arab-democracy-rising-international-lessons) and non-violent protest, they will work strenuously to embed a core idea - that the only path to renewal is Islamist and it must be won by violence.

The future of the middle east, the livelihoods of millions of people there, al-Qaida’s chances of survival and all that entails - the Arab spring is carrying the world in its hands.