Obsessed with Osama By Mosharraf Zaidi

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“I believe they (Bin Laden and Mullah Omar) are here in Pakistan and it would be really helpful if we could get them.” And with that, in what is now becoming an amusing routine, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday, once again, expressed her conviction that Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan.

On May 9, 2010, just days after the failed Times Square bombing plot revealed a Pakistani American to be behind it, Mrs. Clinton was steadfast in defending Pakistan, until her interview with 60 Minutes, in which she said: “Somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is, where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is, and we expect more cooperation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11.î

And of course, there was last year, during a visit to Pakistan that most judged to be highly successful, when during a TV interview on October 29, 2009, Mrs. Clinton said, ìAl-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted toÖas far as we know, they are in Pakistan.î

This is becoming a rather predictable routine. Predictable, but intriguing. After all, as one of the American political elitesí longest standing friend (and for many years only friend) to Pakistan, its hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton wants to deliberately damage Pakistan in the eyes of her countryís citizens.

Bin Laden is not a very popular fellow in Pakistan. As Mrs. Clintonís friends in the Republican Party will testify, IRI polls have repeatedly shown that extremism and Al-Qaeda, are deeply unpopular in this country. Repeatedly suggesting that Pakistan knowingly shelters Bin Laden seems like a poor public diplomacy move.

More importantly, none of the core policy statements of the Obama Administration mention killing or even finding bin Ladenís as an objective of its military and political efforts. In the March 27, 2009 ìdisrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaedaî speech, President Obama does not mention Bin Laden even once. In the December 1, 2009 Afghanistan surge address at West Point, President Obama mentions the Afghan Talibanís refusal to hand over ìbin Ladenî as the rationale for the war in Afghanistan. And most recently in the US National Security Strategy released in May, there again, is no mention of bin Laden at all.

Simply put, Osama bin Laden, while a massive symbol, represents neither a strategic, nor a tactical, nor an operational target of US military and political efforts. While President Obama was gung-ho during his election campaign, his statements after winning the 2008 election in the US are most telling. On January 14, President-elect Obama said: ìMy preference obviously would be to capture or kill him,” he said. “But if we have so tightened the noose that he’s in a cave somewhere and can’t even communicate with his operatives then we will meet our goal of protecting America.î

When Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was killed in 2006 there was widespread consensus that the most important member of Al-Qaeda, more so than bin Laden, had just been terminated.

Even Dick Cheney, who would be proud to be called Al-Qaeda and bin Ladenís worst enemy, says that ìOsama bin Laden is ó wherever he is ó he’s in a deep hole. He does not have much impact on the organisation as best we can tell. The important thing was to go after the organisation, after al Qaeda. Even if you got Osama bin Laden tomorrow, you’d still have a problem in terms of whatever residue of al-Qaeda is out there.î

Why then does Mrs. Clinton keep finding ways to bring up bin Laden, further deepening the already desperately bad press Pakistan gets in America, and actively antagonizing many Pakistanis?

My guess is that Mrs. Clinton never imagined it would be so difficult to help a country that she is fond of, as she has found trying to help Pakistan, over the last two years. As Dick Cheney and Barack Obama agree, Osama bin Laden, is not a primary target of the American strategy here. Mrs. Clinton keeps bringing him up because bin Laden stories serve as a good distraction from the otherwise disastrous relationship that even she canít seem to manage fixing. Welcome to Pakistan, Mrs. Clinton. Hope you enjoyed your stay.