How Much Does Al-Zawahri Matter?

The Biden Administration believes it has scored a major victory with the death of al-Zawahri, but how much does the death of this one man really mean, what difference will it make going forward?  Will it prove to be a purely symbolic victory or a meaningful step forward for American security?  Perhaps America will be a little safer, but it won’t change the underlying social and political dynamics that led to 9/11.  It is good that Zawahri is dead, no doubt, but the place where he died shows us just how far we are from where we need to be in Afghanistan.

In principle, I support ending America’s longest war, but the reality is that until Afghan women are safe, the American public is not safe.  There is no way for the American public to be safe from terrorism until Afghan women no longer experience terrorism in thier own homes.  Knowing what to do in Afghanistan isn’t easy.  America’s longest war seems to only be going nowhere.  But it is no accident that Al Qaeda has reemerged at the exact moment that journalists are reporting that the Taliban are renewing their persecution of women.  It’s about doing what’s right, and about handling it the right way.  World peace and the welfare of Afghan women are intertwined.

That Biden figured that America was unable to fix Afghanistan is understandable, but that doesn’t mean abandoning Afghan women was an answer either.  This administration is making the mistake of thinking that pulling out and launching drone strikes is somehow going to insulate the American people from the effects of on the ground, day to day tragedies in a country known for being a place where empires go to die.  But thinking this way is how Al Qaeda was set in motion in Afghanistan in the first place.  Warfare has existed in Afghanistan longer than I have been alive (I am 45).  War where civilians, particularly women, were caught in the crossfire.  For decades, the world ignored the plight of the Afghan people.  There seemed no strategic benefit in caring, and when there was the perceived strategic benefit it led America to arm the very people it would one day spend two decades fighting.   

Then came the brutal oppression of women.  Again, there was no strategic reason to care, and so the world ignored the problem.  It took tragic terrorist attacks to make the plight of Afgan women important to the the world community.  

We can choose to learn from this history instead of repeating it.  Whatever the answers, and I don’t pretend to have them all, just allowing Afghan women to be oppressed in their own homes, in their own country, is not the answer.  It is how we got here, and it will do nothing but get us back here again.  Ignoring the persecution of Afghan women is how we got 9/11, and ignoring it again is the best way to have it repeated.