War on terror is not over with al-Zawahri's killing

The death of Ayman al-Zawahri is a victory, but one that likely brings us no closer to ending a war on terrorism. Credit: AP
When the United States killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri Sunday, the successful drone strike could have sparked temptation to call it the end of an era.
It isn’t. We still live in the post-9/11 world that al-Zawahri and his previously killed boss, Osama bin Laden, spurred when they plotted attacks that left nearly 3,000 Americans dead in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
And the headlines, not just of al-Zawahri’s death but of Afghanistan and the Taliban again harboring al-Qaida, could have been written 10 years ago, or 20. So could the news of thousands of supporters and opponents of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protesting and counter-protesting at the Iraqi Parliament as that nation enters its 11th month without a formed government. In Iraq, both sides are allied with heavily armed militias, and the prospects for that nation remain frightening.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the hopes of the United States for peace, stability and an end to the incubation of terrorism have in many ways withered away. The changes 9/11 wrought here — massive spending on defense and homeland security, stripping off shoes and belts at airport security, the mantra of “see something, say something” — continue.
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian who was 71, ushered in this era years before we knew it had begun. He masterminded the 1998 attacks on embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded more than 4,500. He also planned the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more in 2000.
His killing is justified. A trial isn’t necessary when a mass murderer’s zealotry has him confessing his crimes against the United States in videos, and begging for new recruits to help kill more Americans. That he was killed while on the balcony of his safe house in Kabul, without anyone else being injured, is a quietly humane side note.
The fact that he was being harbored in Kabul, one year after U.S. forces left Afghanistan on a Taliban promise to never foster al-Qaida, is a worrisome but unsurprising development. The Taliban is reneging on every promise it made to induce us to leave, including providing some freedoms for girls and women.
Yet staying likely wouldn’t have helped, in Afghanistan or Iraq. And this operation shows we can be effective there even without a force on the ground.
The death of al-Zawahri is a victory, but one that likely brings us no closer to ending a war on terrorism that feels unsettlingly eternal. New Yorkers who were present at Ground Zero are still dying from the destructive forces unleashed that day. People all over the region are still grieving loved ones lost that day.
It was founding father Thomas Jefferson who first instructed us that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Respectfully … he had no idea.
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