Joe Biden took a well deserved – and somewhat needed – victory lap after he announced that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in a US drone strike.
“Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in his televised remarks at the White House, that gave the beleaguered US president a chance to boost his sagging popularity.
America’s political leaders applauded the death of Zawahiri, who had served as Osama bin Laden’s deputy and helped coordinate the September 11 attacks. US officials said that Zawahiri had recently been living in a safe house in Kabul, as he plotted the terrorist group’s revitalization after 10 years of chaos following Bin Laden’s death.
“The president is to be commended for his strong leadership to keep Americans safe and to deliver justice to this despicable terrorist,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said.
But the celebratory news does not come a moment too soon for Biden, who has recently seen his polling numbers drop in the face of multiple domestic and international crises. Record-high inflation and the war in Ukraine, combined with the supreme court’s decision to end the federal right to abortion access, appears to have sparked a national sense of pessimism.
A Gallup poll taken last month found that Biden’s approval rating had sunk to its lowest level since the start of his presidency, with just 38% of Americans giving him a positive review. Biden’s disapproval rating has climbed to 59%, intensifying Democrats’ concerns over a potential shellacking in the midterm elections this November.
But things now seem to be looking up for Biden. In addition to the death of Zawahiri, the president has enjoyed some recent success on his domestic agenda as well. Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who previously tanked Biden’s signature legislative proposal, announced last week that he had reached an agreement with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.
The compromise bill still needs to win the support of every Democratic senator, but if passed, the legislation would deliver $369bn in investments to combat climate change and help reduce the federal deficit through a series of tax increases.
Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the killing of Zawahiri and the Manchin deal showed how Biden and his party were delivering for all Americans.
“Because of those two things, the country benefits, even those who did not support the president,” Seawright said. “I think it is a reminder to all those in the political ecosystem – elected and non-elected, voters and non-voters – that it is so important that we have leaders who understand the issues and the challenges we face, both abroad and at home, and can deal with those at the same time.”
Biden’s allies say the killing of Zawahiri also vindicates the president’s broader foreign policy agenda.
When the US withdrew from Afghanistan last year, Republicans and some foreign policy experts warned that America’s absence would leave them with little visibility into the region, as the Taliban took control of Kabul. Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw troops, even as the world saw heartbreaking images of desperate Afghans trying to flee the country by clinging to departing planes.
Biden administration officials asserted the killing of Zawahiri demonstrated how the US can still collect crucial intelligence and conduct counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, even without boots on the ground.
“President Biden last year committed to the American people that, following the withdrawal of US forces, the United States would continue to protect our country and act against terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said. “With the operation that delivered justice to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, we have made good on that commitment and we will continue to do so in the face of any future threats.”
But Republicans countered that Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul underscored how Afghanistan was becoming a sanctuary for terrorists now that the Taliban has regained control.
“President Biden deserves credit for approving this strike. But al-Zawahiri’s return to downtown Kabul further indicates that Afghanistan is again becoming a major thicket of terrorist activity following the president’s decision to withdraw US forces,” the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said. “Killing al-Zawahiri is a success, but the underlying resurgence of al-Qaida terrorists into Afghanistan is a growing threat that was foreseeable and avoidable.”
While the US celebrates the demise of a man who helped bring about the deaths of thousands of Americans, experts agree that Biden and other global leaders must remain vigilant to prevent future terrorist attacks.
“It is dangerous to believe that the death of Zawahiri ends the threat of terrorism,” said Thomas Warrick, senior resident at the Atlantic Council and former deputy assistant secretary for counter-terrorism policy at the Department of Homeland Security.
“Today’s most dangerous al-Qaida franchise is al-Shabaab in Somalia, far from where Zawahiri was living in Afghanistan. Their plots, we can predict, will continue uninterrupted by Sunday’s successful strike.”
