Bin Laden Follow-Up: Waking Up to the Realities of Pakistan and Iran

Hamid Karzai, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Asif Ali ZardariFor the past decade, the prevailing idea about the much-hated leader of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qa'eda was that he was probably in a cave somewhere in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were jokes about how Osama bin Laden had to drag around his kidney dialysis machine, with air conditioners installed in stony caverns to keep him cool in the heat.

But there were those who consistently held a different view. They firmly believed that bin Laden was somewhere in Pakistan in a proper house --- if not a mansion --- and living a comfortable life.

Turns out, they were right.

They were right not because they had access to exceptional intelligence sources, but simply because they chose to see what was right in front of everyone. They took head of the evidence demonstrating that the governments of Afghanistan’s neighbors are more interested in helping terrorist organizations destabilise other countries than in relieving the suffering of their own people. They saw the proof, time and again, that Pakistan and Iran are the main reason why the Taliban has not been defeated in Afghanistan.

I have traveled to Abbottabad twice. The area where bin Laden was hiding is the strategic heart of the city. The Kakul Military Academy, which is almost as important to Pakistan as West Point is to the US, is half a mile from Osama's last residence. Furthermore, the city is very liberal and not predominantly Pashtun --- the ethnic group that is bitterly fundamentalist in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So the argument that bin Laden was being shielded by rogue fundamentalists fighting the Pakistani government is not very credible. And it seems impossible that he would be able to hide out for years so close to such an important military facility without being detected.

The real question now is whether the US and its allies will understand how deeply involved Tehran and Islamabad are in rejuvenating a dying insurgency in Afghanistan and turning it into a formidable force.

I am not advocatng a third and a fourth War on Terrorism upon Iran and Pakistan. What should happen, however, is a complete overhaul of the way the world looks at insurgency in Afghanistan. The revelation that bin Laden was hiding inside Pakistan should force the White House and European capitals to re-evaluate the role Afghanistan’s neighbors are playing in a war --- a proxy war between the Iranian clerics, the Pakistani generals, and the American way of life ---  that’s already consumed too many lives.

Once that is understood, we can start pursuing a strategy on how to win that war. In the meantime, ignorance of Iran’s actions against its people and the peoples of other countries and the coddling or Pakistan while it harbours mass murderers must stop before more lives are wasted.