A Black Swan: Obama, the Big Winner of the Week

It’s precisely the liberal from Chicago who throws the archenemy’s body into the sea.

The American achievement of eliminating Osama bin Laden is primarily that of consciousness. The modern wars are wars of hearts and minds, and hence this is about a strategic achievement. Osama bin Laden wasn’t an operative; he did not authorize actions and terrorist attacks, didn’t conduct mission operations meetings (MOM) and was not involved in the manufacturing production line of multifarious al-Qaida branches scattered all around the world.

Bin Laden is a spiritual leader; he is an idea; he is the spirit and the symbol. And therefore the production capacity of daily terror won’t be harmed. But the spirit is gone. The source of authority is silenced. The muse shut up. A successor to him will arise soon, obviously, but for now we may rejoice.

You can’t say that the world, the morning after bin Laden has been wiped out, is a more secure place. In the short run, the world is much less secure (especially for the Americans). Any lunatic will be aiming now to pull a spectacular revenge attack. Possibly, there will be some who’ll have it their way.

On the other hand, the world on the morning of post-bin Laden elimination is a better world. Besides, retaliation has a value of its own. Even when it’s served cold. The Americans settled the bill and proved, again, that even if their machine works slowly, it still works in the end. It took them 10 years and cost several trillion dollars? So what. Whatever it takes.

This will allow Obama to now try to plan the exodus from Afghanistan with dignity, with a large “V” sign under “what needed to be done.” There is no better closure for Leon Panetta, the CIA director, who’s going to be the secretary of defense, and General Petraeus, who’s coming to be the director of the CIA.

This Week’s Big Winner

In translation to our language, killing bin Laden could be allegorized to Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah. The thing is that they will find a replacement for Nasrallah, just as he himself was found a decent and upgraded substitute for his predecessor (al-Musawi), who was eliminated by Israel. The liquidation of Imad Morania, though, still goes unanswered.

When the killed is a true operative, a brain, a commander in the field and possesses experience, initiative and courage accumulated over years, the operational damage is significant. This is exactly the damage Hezbollah is suffering in the last two years (knock on wood). And another example: when Israel liquidated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. This example is very similar, from the standpoint of the character of the eliminated, to bin Laden’s case.

Yassin had no real operational worth. Muhammad Daf and Ahmed Jabri, the architects of the power of Hamas in the Gaza strip, have a way greater operational value. These two haven’t been eliminated. But still, as it was said above, we may rejoice.

President Obama is the big winner of the week. Unless something very unexpected comes up, hasn’t this operation been a watershed event as far as it concerns him? Within three days he presented his own birth certificate and the death certificate of his worst enemy. If until the day before yesterday, something extraordinary should have happened in order for Obama to win the second term, since yesterday something extraordinary would have to happen so that Obama does not win the second term.

The liquidation of bin Laden — in terms of the successful military operation — is a Hollywood knock-out for Obama. The weak point, the underbelly, the Achilles’ heel and the monkey on the shoulder of the U.S. president were all concentrated in this element: that nagging national security question from the 2008 campaign — “Who do you want to pick up the phone 3 a.m. and order the army to take action?”

Netanyahu’s Secret Weapon

And well, Obama has picked the phone and ordered to the army to perform a feat that even George W. Bush didn’t manage to accomplish. Overnight, the nerd of the neighborhood turned into Rambo. It was precisely the compassionate nerd, the liberal from Chicago, a man of reconciliation and courtesies, who in the end threw the villain’s body into the sea. And now let’s see the Republican rabble, from the ludicrous Donald Trump to tempestuous Sarah Palin, try to hold a candle to him at this point.

From Obama, we’re getting to Netanyahu. Yes, there is no doubt that the prime minister was glad about bin Laden’s downfall, but after thinking for a moment, he realized he’s in trouble. Maybe even big trouble. When he arrives in Washington at the end of the month, he’s about to find a completely different president from the one he was expecting to find.

Instead of a lame duck, he’ll face a Black Swan over there. Killing bin Laden will restore Obama’s confidence and shorten his patience with our kindergarten here in the Middle East. He’s going to need an urgent gesture toward the Islamic world, which he tried to appease at the beginning of his term. Such gestures are usually made over Israel’s body.

The endless hesitations about whether and when to lay the American peace program out on the table might reach the decisive point, and that’s not going to be a decision that would leave Netanyahu happy. Not to mention that Bibi may get Obama for an additional term. Shivers indeed.

But Netanyahu still has a secret weapon. A weapon that never fails and is always there, when we need it, when the chances are running out and the situation is rapidly deteriorating. This weapon is called “unthinkable stupidity” and it regularly pops up amidst our bitterest enemies. This time, it’s Hamas’s turn.

A Cardboard State

Here is Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister, who is apparently not a big genius because he found it urgent to jump up and condemn the killing of the “Arab holy warrior” bin Laden and criticize an American policy “based on oppression and bloodshed [against Arabs and Muslims].”

Beyond the routine hypocrisy, Haniyeh has buried with his own hands — and fortunately for us— the chances of the new unity government of the Palestinian people to capture hearts and buy fans in Washington or the West. And that’s assuming this government ever rises (and there’s no assurance this won’t blow up again). Hamas is being too stubborn to unveil its true face anew each time and volunteering for free — and for this, all we have left to do is to be grateful.

Along with Haniyeh, the bin Laden elimination was also condemned by our own Haniyeh, Sheikh Raed Salah, holding Israeli ID card and Israeli citizenship while continuing to act with all his might for the destruction of the Israeli entity. Haifa University announced yesterday that it is canceling Sheikh Salah’s visit to the campus — I’m just asking myself how in the world he could have possibly been invited there in the first place.

Pakistan is also looking to experience hard times. Bin Laden builds for himself a villa in an hour and fifteen minute drive from the capital and five minutes (by bicycle) from Training Base 1 of the Pakistan Army, and the world is quiet. Besides the echoing American default (how come the superpower of this magnitude has been failing to catch terrorist number one for a decade), there is clear evidence here that Pakistan has been a cardboard state for quite a long time now.

We don’t have a particular problem with cardboard states — the thing is that inside of this cardboard there is a nuclear weapon, and this should concern anyone who plans to keep living in this world.

The Right to Self-Defense

And to finish with, as usual, the hypocrisy: yes, innocent people have been killed during the elimination of bin Laden (it’s not known exactly how many yet) — just as some innocent souls were killed at the elimination of Gadhafi’s son, or in the rest of the NATO bombardments in Libya, just like the countless innocent people who died in so many different military events within the war on terror waged by the West.

But no one’s honking, considering calling for Goldstone or convening the Security Council. This happens to them only when we are under discussion. It’s interesting why.

At the end of Holocaust Memorial Day*, all that’s left is to wonder is whether the lesson has been learned, whether the message got through, whether there was an enlightenment — or whether the world goes on as if nothing happened and deprives the Jews of the most fundamental and legitimate right of all nations of the world: the right to defend themselves.

*Translator’s Note: This year Holocaust Memorial Day fell on May 2, the same day that bin Laden’s death became known in Israel. Because of time differences, the death was announced late in the evening on Sunday, May 1, in the United States.