Why is Laden killed NOW?

You might remember a Shekhar Suman gag on Zee TV's Movers and Shakers
several years ago:
An angry George W Bush announces that the United States will bomb the
place where Osama bin Laden is found to be hiding.
Hearing this, Vajpayee looks under his bed, pauses, and with a
characteristic flick of his wrist says: "Thank God! He isn't here!"
Over in Rawalpindi, General Musharraf looks under his bed, sighs in
relief, and says: "Thank God! He is still here!"
Shekhar Suman, more than most Western analysts, got the plot right.
Keeping Osama bin Laden out of Washington's hands was vital in order
to prevent having to publicly deal with revelations of how the
Pakistani military-jihadi complex not only was connected with
al-Qaeda, but might also have been involved in the conspiracy behind
the 9/11 attacks.
Moreover, when the Pakistani military leadership was getting paid
hundreds of millions of dollars per year to hunt bin Laden down, it
made little sense to give him up quickly. As early as October 2001, a
month after 9/11, wags in Islamabad coined the phrase "al-Faida" (the
profit) in anticipation of the rewards Pakistan would reap for joining
the war on terror that it had played a part in creating. Pakistan was
in an international doghouse at that time. Its economy was crumbling
under the weight of sections imposed by the international community
for having carried out nuclear tests in 1998. Its government, then
under General Musharraf's military dictatorship, was seen as odious,
not least for supporting the original Taliban regime in Kabul. It was
barely surviving on Saudi largesse until September 2001, when General
Musharraf's ditching of one set of allies for another changed his
country's fortunes -- from being nearly toast, Pakistan was the toast.
Just how much was the al-Faida worth? According to data compiled by K
Alan Kronstadt, of the US Congressional Research Service, between 2002
and 2010, US direct overt aid and military reimbursements to Pakistan
amounted to $19.6 billion, of which $13.3 billion was for
security-related heads. Obviously, if there is "direct, overt" aid,
there is likely to be "indirect, covert" aid. There is also the money
from other countries and loans from the IMF. Because the
military-jihadi complex dominates the Pakistani political economy, it
is the primary beneficiary of this largesse. Between 2002 and 2008, my
estimate suggests that the business of shipping US and NATO containers
from Karachi to Kabul alone made $500m per year for the military
establishment and $300m per year for the militant groups. Why would
they want the gravy train to stop?
They wouldn't, but the Obama administration had other ideas. It made
three changes that caused the Pakistani military establishment to redo
its sums. First, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation made it harder for
the military to capture the funds. It also came with more strings
attached. Second, the Obama administration increased the number of
drone strikes against targets in Pakistan, while increasing pressure
on the Pakistani army to go after the taliban groups in its tribal
areas. Finally, by indicating a timeline for withdrawal of US troops
from Afghanistan, Washington triggered the endgame.
With the Obama adminstration taking a harder line on the Pakistani
army, the al-Faida from the war against al-Qaeda began to be less
attractive. At the same time, with a US withdrawal in sight,
Afghanistan began to look more attractive as a prize. For General
Kayani to stand a chance for claiming this prize, it is necessary for
President Obama to prevail over other members of his administration
and get US troops out earlier.
Playing the bin Laden card is a brilliant way to achieve this outcome.
Although US officials claim they did it without Pakistan's knowledge
or permission, it is hard to believe he could be found without the
Pakistani military establishment permitting it.
Either way, bin Laden's elimination provides the right political cover
for President Obama to declare victory and order his troops out of
Afghanistan. Once withdrawal starts, President Obama will be
politically dependent on General Kayani to ensure that it takes place
in a manner that doesn't damage his re-election prospects. Expect the
latter to use the leverage to ensure that the military-jihadi complex
gets its proxies into the government in Kabul.
As I wrote on my blog yesterday, "the United States is unlikely to
punish Pakistan for the decade of duplicity, subterfuge and violence
that consumed innumerable lives and astounding amounts of money."
President Obama will not ask why Osama bin Laden was living it up in
Abbottabad, a bus stop away from the Pakistan Military Academy, and
not in a cave somewhere in Waziristan. You won't find Washington too
interested in confronting General Kayani on when bin Laden moved in
there and why his presence went undetected for so long.
Rather, Washington will seek plausible reassurances that after it
leaves, Afghanistan will not play host to terrorists targeting the
United States. It will place some anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan
Afghans into positions of power in Kabul to balance Pakistan's
proxies. It might retain some troops and drones in Afghanistan just in
case it needs to use a stick. That apart, it will accede to Pakistani
demands that Kabul be made over to a pro-Pakistani regime.
In time, the Pakistani military-jihadi complex will seek to reconquer
Afghanistan (called "gaining strategic depth") with China's support or
connivance.
We are staring at a return of the 1990s. This is a bad outcome for
Afghans, Pakistanis and Indians. The military-jihadi complex will gain
in strength. Pakistan's civilian government will be more powerless. It
will only be a facade with which to seek foreign assistance. It will
also be the whipping boy, blamed for the worsening state of Pakistan.
Hundreds of thousands of triumphant militants will need to be given
new targets. Compared to the early 1990s, it is far more difficult
today---strategically and operationally---to push them across into
India. Yet, the interests of the military-jihadi complex and the
absence of a miracle job-machine will pose a serious threat to India's
national security. We may be, at best, two summers away from an
escalation of the proxy war in Kashmir and elsewhere.