There is a silly debate taking place in Washington about who deserves credit for Osama bin Laden's assassination - President Obama or President Bush.

John F. Kennedy once said that victory has a thousand fathers, so can we admit that lots of people - thousands beyond those two people - deserve credit?

The outcome is the culmination of years of intelligence and action, but this specific operation was obviously conceived, planned and executed by the Obama administration, which deserves genuine respect for handling it well.

But the real lesson that we should be drawing from it is that counterterrorism works. Counterterrorism is our most important and effective strategy in the war on terror. FULL POST

Nearly 10 years after 9/11, a U.S. Special Forces team killed Osama bin Laden. Notably, bin Laden was found and shot in Pakistan, not in the remote mountains of neighboring Afghanistan. What does this mean for the battle against violent extremism? What about for U.S.-Pakistani relations? GPS breaks it down for you with an all-star show, including two guests who helped spearhead the hunt for bin Laden over the last decade.

Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, sits down with Fareed to talk about her administration’s efforts to capture the 9/11 mastermind and just what bin Laden's death means to her personally. FULL POST

To get better perspective on the significance of Osama bin Laden’s death for al Qaeda, Pakistan-U.S. relations and the war in Afghanistan, I talked to Bruce Riedel. Riedel spent nearly 30 years as a CIA officer focusing on terrorism; he served as senior advisor to three U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues; and he chaired President Obama’s first interagency review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Amar C. Bakshi: Can al Qaeda survive the death of Osama bin Laden in any meaningful sense?

Bruce Riedel:  The death of Bin Laden is a very severe blow for al Qaeda. And it comes at a particularly bad time for al Qaeda. The organization has already been under severe pressure from the drone strikes and it has looked out of touch with the revolutions in the Arab world. It’s an open question whether it will be able to adapt to this new environment.

Its strength is that it still is deeply enmeshed in the jihadist culture of Pakistan. The fact that bin Laden was hiding in the heartland of the Pakistani nation and that he’s being eulogized by senior members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and other jihadist groups shows how much al Qaeda is entangled in the Pakistani jihadist establishment. That’s its greatest strength today - it’s not alone but rather part of a syndicate of terrorists. It will continue to pose a threat as long as it has these Pakistani allies. FULL POST

John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, says that the CIA has an important role to play in the new Middle East, transforming the repressive national security apparatus of countries like Egypt into more accountable and transparent organizations.

McLaughlin draws on his experience in Eastern Europe during the dissolution of the Soviet Union to explain how "national security states" can become more transparent, pluralistic and democratic.

Amar C. Bakshi: First, does Gadhafi have potent chemical or biological weapons we need to be concerned about in this civil war?

John McLaughlin: I would be very surprised if he had biological weapons, the components of any nuclear material or any serious chemical weapons. He reportedly has some  mustard gas that was not fully destroyed, but I believe it would be hard for him to use effectively because of its age, location, and the absence of delivery systems

Do you worry he might be trying to sponsor some sort of asymmetrical response through supporting terrorism once again?

If he survives this and manages to reorganize a regime in some part of Libya or in all of Libya, I would be seriously concerned. I would expect him to organize a terrorist-based response to what he has experienced from the West during this period.

FULL POST

By Tim Lister, CNN

Get up to speed on the fast-changing events in Libya as of Thursday morning, ET:

OVERVIEW

- Libya’s foreign minister flees; are there more to come?
- Rebels try to make a stand at Brega as Gadhafi forces adopt new tactics
- NATO, France say no to arming rebels
- Maltese boat on mercy run to Misurata
- Exile for Gadhafi? Not so easy
- Syria claims to be preparing to scrap emergency law
- In Yemen, Saleh playing a dangerous al Qaeda card

FULL POST