London– The reported killing of Osama bin Laden is unlikely to have much effect on the so-called US-led 'war on terror,' according to former CIA political analyst Kathleen Christison.
“This 'war on terror' has taken on a life of its own, having nothing to do with bin Laden or the Taliban, and I fear the United States will continue to pursue wars and military interventions even in the absence of bin Laden,” Christison said.
“The US wants to control the Middle East for its own purposes - to secure continued access to oil, to further Israel's regional hegemony, to help maintain friendly Arab governments such as Saudi Arabia in power, and to advance its own imperial ambitions,” she said.
“Bin Laden has never been a major factor in these objectives. He was merely a convenient excuse for the US to pursue these aggressive policies,” she said in an interview with IRNA.
Christison, now aged 70, worked as an analyst for the CIA for 16 years, including the last seven years centring on the Middle East ahead of her resignation in 1979.
She said that bin Laden ceased being a pivotal player in militant operations “quite some time ago” and was convinced that the United States, which claimed to have finally killed him on Monday, has been aware of this.
“As I noted, he has merely been a ready excuse for US aggression for some years,” the political analyst said.
“It may be true, as the US is claiming that locating bin Laden and being able to kill him arose now more or less serendipitously, simply as a target of opportunity.”
But she also related that the timing of the killing “most definitely helps Barack Obama domestically, at a time when presidential election campaigning is beginning and his own popularity ratings are low.”
“The joyful reaction among many Americans would seem to indicate that many of these Americans will give Obama great credit for the assassination and will regard him as a hero. His poll ratings will almost certainly rise,” she told IRNA.
Christison said she believed that even though al-Qaeda and bin Laden were “basically a creation of the West and the Arab governments, this did not mean that these governments still exercised any control over either the organization or the man.”
“In the loose, subterranean world of militant groups and special intelligence operations, helping create a militant organization like al-Qaeda does not automatically mean having real control over that organization.”
“In addition, a great deal of time has passed since the Mujaheddin arose in Afghanistan in the 1980s - time in which contacts with Islamists were undoubtedly lost,” she said.
Chistison also suggested that it was clear that the US “lost track of where bin Laden was in the years following the 9/11 attacks, and did not particularly care about his whereabouts because he and al-Qaeda had become much less important.”
“I think this explains in large part why it is possible that bin Laden could have been living in a large compound in a Pakistani city, right under the noses of Pakistani and US intelligence people, without anyone paying him particular attention until now,” she said.
Since leaving the CIA, Christison has worked as a free-lance author and gained recognition as vocal critics of US policy and Israel, writing such books as Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy and The Wound of Dispossession: Telling the Palestinian Story.
In an earlier interview with IRNA in March, she accused the US of wreaking havoc and committing “gross atrocities” around the world and “gross violations of international law.” IRNA
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