Machiavelli and the Arab Spring

Why was Bin Laden killed now? One possible answer is that it is far safer to kill or capture him now than it was last year. There is at least some room for suspicion that the US knew where he was for quite a long time and that when Hillary Clinton complained last year that Bin Laden's whereabouts were known to elements in Pakistan it was because she had firm knowledge of the location herself http://tinyurl.com/32qvjbk. The consequences of an operation against him then were completely unpredictable though. Before the politics of the Arab world took their unforeseen turn just before Christmas it was entirely reasonable to fear that the death of Bin Laden might have provoked fundamentalist Islamicist revolts. What the last few months have shown is that the moment of Al Qaeda has passed. The new movements in North Africa and the Middle East may well be inspired or at least animated by themes within Islam, but they aspire to manage and negotiate modern life, not refuse it. As many commentators have argued, the politics of Al Qaeda were fantasies, murderous fantasies for the most part. It is hardly surprising that Arab societies have found far more rational and powerful political norms through which they can mobilise themselves. My speculation, and it can only be that short of evidence that is unlikely to emerge, is that it was possible to kill Bin Laden because in the most fundamental way he had ceased to matter.