US President Obama yesterday calmly announced to US citizens and to the world that Osama Bin Laden had been killed and his body taken into US custody, after a firefight during a US special operation at a house in Pakistan where Bin Laden had been sheltered, one gathers for a long time.
The President noted that no Americans and no Pakistani civilians had been killed. He said he had informed the President of Pakistan (after the event, it seems pretty clear) and that both agreed Bin Laden's death was good for Pakistan as well as for the US.
Obama underlined the continuity of US policy which he had inherited from George Bush and made his own when taking office, that the top priority of US global intelligence operations was to locate and kill or capture Bin Laden as punishment for Al Qaeda's mass murders of 11 September 2001.
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He noted that this was not a fight the US had started; that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda had launched war on the US. He said that all Americans whatever their ethnicity or religion could be proud that justice had been done today.
I heard no Hollywood macho, unseemly chauvinistic gloating, nor any anti-Muslim undertones, in the President's sober presentation of what the US special forces had done in another sovereign country and why. This was, to my ear, a President of moral stature taking personal responsibility, with dignity and even nobility.
What is the political and moral significance of today's news?
Politically, it will revive US self-confidence about its role and power in the world, and will enhance global perceptions of the US as a resolute and ruthless opponent when its citizens or interests are attacked outside the bounds of international law.
It will also counter the idea that US Democratic administrations are weaker than Republicans when it comes to giving effect to tough foreign policy decisions. Obama succeeded where Bush had failed: he ended the US war in Iraq and brought Bin Laden to final US punishment.
Moreover, the ghost of Carter's failed hostage rescue operation in Iran has been finally laid to rest by this audacious, apparently flawlessly conducted military operation in Pakistan.
Obama's evident toughness may help restore more dignity and sense of proportion to the increasingly trivial and silly tone of how Americans have lately been encouraged by the infotainment industry to see their president.
Robert Fisk suggests it won't make much difference globally: that Bin Laden's lasting achievement remains the