In Bin Laden’s Death, a Critical Moment for the Arab World
By DAVID E. SANGER
NYT
In the early days of the Arab Spring, President Obama frequently told his aides that the movement sweeping from Cairo to Yemen — one place where Al Qaeda found its intellectual roots, the other where it has taken refuge — created what he called an “alternative narrative” for a disaffected generation.
There were no pictures of Osama bin Laden being paraded through the streets, he noted. Nor were there chants of “Death to America.” The question now is whether Bin Laden’s death at the hands of American Special Forces and the C.I.A. spurs the movement to promote democracy in the region or — a very real alternative — fuels the Islamist forces now trying to fill the new power vacuum in the Arab world.
The White House, not surprisingly, argued late Sunday evening that the killing of Bin Laden came at just the crucial moment, when the Arab world was turning its back on Al Qaeda’s ideology.
“It’s important to note that it is most fitting that Bin Laden’s death comes at a time of great movement towards freedom and democracy that is sweeping the Arab world,” one of Mr. Obama’s national security aides told reporters in a telephone call late Sunday night, after the spectacular raid on Bin Laden’s high-walled compound was over. “He stood in direct opposition to what the greatest men and women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are risking their lives for: individual rights and human dignity.”
(More here.)
NYT
In the early days of the Arab Spring, President Obama frequently told his aides that the movement sweeping from Cairo to Yemen — one place where Al Qaeda found its intellectual roots, the other where it has taken refuge — created what he called an “alternative narrative” for a disaffected generation.
There were no pictures of Osama bin Laden being paraded through the streets, he noted. Nor were there chants of “Death to America.” The question now is whether Bin Laden’s death at the hands of American Special Forces and the C.I.A. spurs the movement to promote democracy in the region or — a very real alternative — fuels the Islamist forces now trying to fill the new power vacuum in the Arab world.
The White House, not surprisingly, argued late Sunday evening that the killing of Bin Laden came at just the crucial moment, when the Arab world was turning its back on Al Qaeda’s ideology.
“It’s important to note that it is most fitting that Bin Laden’s death comes at a time of great movement towards freedom and democracy that is sweeping the Arab world,” one of Mr. Obama’s national security aides told reporters in a telephone call late Sunday night, after the spectacular raid on Bin Laden’s high-walled compound was over. “He stood in direct opposition to what the greatest men and women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are risking their lives for: individual rights and human dignity.”
(More here.)
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