http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME03Df01.html
On the basis of interaction with top al-Qaeda leaders, this correspondent has no doubt in predicting that Operation Osama Bin Laden marks the beginning of a shift of the main war theater from Afghanistan to Pakistan and that all previous efforts for reconciliation between Pakistani militants and Pakistan will be sabotaged and all guns will turn towards the Pakistani military establishment.
If this is the case, and Asian Times is a fantastic resource on whats going on in Asian politics, than Pakistan really is in the shit. It will have the radical Islamist forces turning on the military and its already shaky relationship with the West falling up with the realisation that the Pakistanti ISI have been protecting Bin Laden for YEARS!
The rampant anti-Americanism among the general public and the growing power of religious forces is going to put huge pressure on the Pakistani army, the only force still keeping this country intact.
Anather take on Bin Ladens death...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME03Df02.html
It is hard to conclude otherwise that Bin Laden died this week because people who knew his whereabouts chose this particular moment to inform the US authorities. What has changed? The simple answer is: everything has changed. Instability in the Muslim world has reached a level that makes Bin Laden redundant.
The overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the near-overthrow of Yemini President Ali Abdullah Saleh, along with the eruption of instability across the whole of the Arab world, changed al-Qaeda's position. From Riyadh's vantage point, Bin Laden was a loose cannon and an annoyance, but no threat to the strategic position of Saudi Arabia.
The royal family preferred to allow some of its more radically-inclined members to provide support to Bin Laden on a covert basis in return for al-Qaeda's de facto agreement to leave the Arabian Peninsula in peace. As a WikiLeaks cable revealed, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a secret December 2009 memo, "More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Toiba] and other terrorist groups."
The Saudis, moreover, have an interest in cleaning up the terrorist associations of the Pakistani military. As the Saudi cold war with Iran grows increasingly hot, Riyadh may look towards Islamabad for military support. Asia Times Online has reported that the Bahrain National Guard already is recruiting Pakistani mercenaries.
I think this is a very good analysis. The western media is focused on America, when the real politics is centred on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. There is a domestic political angle for Obama, as this assassination is the de facto start of his reelection bid for 2012 - and what better way to start than with the killing of Public Enemy No.1?!
The really interesting thing is that Bin Laden was always a tactical pawn, used by the great powers of that region and their respective intelligence agencies, and now he has been terminated by the ISI, the Saudis and the CIA.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction