Post-Bin Laden prospects for the peace process in Afghanistan

With all the symbolic allusions to 9/11, including President Obama’s visit to ‘ground zero’ on May 5, at the end of the day the annihilation of the world’s ‘terrorist number one’ in a US covert operation in northern Pakistan turned out to be a highly contextual, instrumental and multi-purpose move. The relevant political contexts are multiple, but the interests, dynamics and implications involved are qualitatively different from the ones that shaped the US-led ‘war on terrorism’ at its onset. A decade since 9/11, the main international implication of bin Laden’s execution is not the most obvious and direct one, i.e. the toppling of al-Qaeda as a major blow to transnational terrorism, but a more indirect and fundamental one.