Bigger Challenges than al Qaeda

Important as the death of Osama bin Laden may be, disposing of al Qaeda's leader wasn't the most important goal for U.S. foreign policy. The three more pressing problems are to get Pakistan right, get the Arab spring right and containing Iran.
Bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, had been living in the heart of Pakistan, in security as well as comfort. Al Qaeda remains a deadly force, but its operational terrorists are only a few hundred, with its most lethal outposts distant from bin Laden’s retirement home. Polling by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project shows that confidence in bin Laden was slumping in the Islamic world, ranging from 22% in Egypt to 1% among Lebanese Muslims.
Pakistan is a nation of 187 million people—35% of them less than 15 years of age—that borders on China, India, Iran and Afghanistan. It is 95% Muslim, with virulently anti-Western Islamic elements that its government or military cannot control. It has nuclear weapons and has sold this technology to anyone willing to pay. Under Obama, relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have deteriorated dramatically.
Having encouraged the genie to come out of the bottle in Egypt, It is imperative for the USA now to find a way to help foster the pro-democracy wave in the Arab world without allowing it to produce the chaos that opens the door for Islamic extremists to offer their version of a new order. That is way beyond the capability of Obama and his cohorts.
Obama also continues to lose in the battle of wits with Iran. Iran's leaders are concluding from the weak response of Obama that the lesson to be learned from Egypt, Libya is to crush dissidents ruthlessly, and that the way to prevent the Western military intervention now plaguing Libya is to finish developing a nuclear weapon to deter it.