Osama Bin Laden is a symbol now

Writing in Time, Peter Bergen asks, “Does Osama Bin Laden still matter?”:

The jihad, some experts contend, has moved beyond Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Dr. Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, lays out the view in his new book, Leaderless Jihad, arguing that “the present threat has evolved from a structured group of al-Qaeda masterminds controlling vast resources and issuing commands to a multitude of informal groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up. These ‘homegrown’ wannabes form a scattered global network, a leaderless jihad.” According to this assessment, two decades since its founding in Peshawar, Pakistan, al-Qaeda remains a source of inspiration for certain extremists around the world. But it’s far from clear that bin Laden commands them.

This view was shared by several European officials I met at a conference of terrorism experts in Florence in May, a few days after bin Laden’s most recent Internet postings. The officials told me they’ve found no evidence of al-Qaeda operations in their countries. If bin Laden has any role in the jihad, say the Europeans, it is merely as an icon. Alain Grignard, Belgium’s top terrorism investigator, says bin Laden is now a “Robin Hood figure; 100 people are inspired by him, but very few respond to do what he wants.”

Even though it’s unquestionably a good thing that al-Qaeda no longer has the organization to carry out large scale 9/11 style attacks, it’s probably not good that we’ve let Bin Laden become greater than himself, as it were.  Now that Bin Laden has become a sort of symbol of successful resistance (for lack of a better word) to the United States, it doesn’t really matter whether we kill him or not; his image will still inspire thousands to carry out attacks around the world.  Which leaves us in the uncomfortable position of having to combat both terrorists and a terrorist icon.  The former is difficult, but feasible.  The latter however, is impossible unless we make serious conceptual changes to our fight against terrorism.  That is, we should probably take a page from Fareed Zakaria, and begin to back away from the “war on terror” language; since it does nothing other than confer upon the terrorists some sort of world-historical significance.  If we want to successfully battle the image of Bin Laden and the terrorists he inspires, we should begin treating them like what they are – a bunch of useless thugs who – in the long run – aren’t worth the total preoccupation of the world’s sole superpower.