THE US-based New Republic magazine has come up with an interesting cover story this week. Peter Bergen, an expert on Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, is the author of the story titled, "The Battle for Tora Bora".

Bergen whose book, "Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden" (it came out soon after 9/11), remains a formidable source of reference on Al-Qaeda has once again blasted the Bush administration for its failure to nab Osama during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

In a scathing critique of the Bushies, Bergen reconstructs the climactic encounter with Osama at Tora Bora, terming it "one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history."

Bergen rues the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks, the then US Army chief, rebuffed the CIA request for 800 Army rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where Osama was hiding.

In the end, as we all know, Al-Qaeda chief managed to miraculously escape the noose because "there were more journalists surrounding Tora Bora than US troops!"

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld (remember him? Or his deadpan, "Stuff happens!" response to the killings of tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq after the invasion?) distracted Gen. Franks by demanding he "freshen up" the Iraq war plan even as the US forces were yet to fortify themselves in the badlands of Afghanistan.

Bergen goes on to argue that the United States failed to capture Osama and allowed the Taleban to come back from the cold - regrouped, rejuvenated and remarkably stronger - because the eyes of America's top guns were taken off the ball in Afghanistan and diverted to Saddam's Iraq.

Commenting on Bergen's New Republic piece, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times points out: "If this were a (Hollywood) movie, an elite Rambo team would have gone into the Pakistan border area long ago to fulfill W.'s empty threat to get Osama "dead or alive."

With Washington and the US media lately increasingly gunning for Pakistan, urging the country's spineless, corrupt politicians to "do more" to "fight terror", the attention is once again focused on the elusive Al-Qaeda chief. So where indeed is OBL?

While one has no sympathy for the US war in Afghanistan or Al-Qaeda, it's really intriguing how and why Osama has managed to elude the dragnet of the most powerful army on the planet and its deadly firepower. If he has been indeed holed up in Pakistan's lawless frontier with Afghanistan all these years, as Americans claim, how come he hasn't been spotted or betrayed all these years?

There have been no leads or intelligence tips whatsoever about the whereabouts of the billionaire who gave up his riches and the charms of an easy, luxurious life for his cause. This despite the rich booty that Osama carries on his head (when one last heard it was $50 million!).

The US Army and its enterprising intelligence agencies with all their rich resources have failed to come within the striking distance of OBL. Yet this hasn't prevented the US media and officials from repeatedly accusing Pakistani agencies of harboring him. When the good ol' Gen. Musharraf was around, Western journalists and commentators would even joke that OBL is holed up right in Islamabad, in the presidency!

So where on earth is OBL? And how crucial is his life or death to the West's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and rest of the Islamic world? Rummy's successor Bob Gates shrugs off: "It's just hard to find somebody who has a sympathetic network and local support."

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, admitted in a recent Congressional hearing that Osama remains an "iconic figure" and that getting him dead or alive is crucial to defeating Al-Qaeda: "I don't think that we can defeat Al-Qaeda until he (Osama) is captured or killed."

But what if Uncle Sam eventually does manage to get Shaikh Osama? Would that mean America can declare "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan and get the hell out of that wretched country?

What really amazes me is the US capacity to believe in the delusion that if they get Osama they can defeat Al-Qaeda or win the war in Afghanistan and beyond. The capture or killing of Osama or Mullah Omar would certainly be a huge jolt to Al-Qaeda and Taleban. But it will not mean the end of their war against America or the West.

For more than a potent fighting force or deadly terrorist outfit, Osama Bin Laden is an idea. If he is eliminated tomorrow, someone else will step into his shoes. Even if the entire Al-Qaeda is wiped out in the wilderness between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it will not mean the end of the cause it claims to champion. Be sure that some other outfit with a different name, headed by someone else, will take its place. Al-Qaeda is a mindset.

I am no fan of OBL and harbor no sympathy for Al-Qaeda in my heart. But I believe that the United States and other leading lights of the "coalition of the willing" cannot defeat the cause that Al-Qaeda espouses without tackling the forces and factors that created the specters like this one.

In fact, according to latest estimates of Western intelligence agencies and independent analysts, there's little presence of Al-Qaeda in today's Afghanistan or in neighboring Pakistan. They believe the terror outfit has been reduced to around a hundred operatives in the region. You can't even call it an organization. It's a tight-knit outfit of highly motivated individuals.

So who's fighting the Western coalition then? It's ordinary Afghans who are increasingly joining the Taleban-led resistance against occupation.

An additional 30,000 US troops being sent by Obama may add to the financial and emotional burden of Uncle Sam. As far as Afghans are concerned, this is just another war against another Western power. They've settled down for another long-haul battle. Time, geography and history are on their side. After all, this isn't the first resistance against a foreign power.

Before the Western coalition, it was the Russian commies 30 years ago. And 140 years before them, it was the wily British. Britain's first Afghan conquest had been easy. But by January 1842, the British "Army of the Indus" had been fleeing for its life.

Only one soldier lived to tell the tale after surviving the treacherous passes between Kabul and Khyber. Britain mounted two more Afghan campaigns, in 1880 and in 1919, with results that were not dramatically different. Just like the Russians and British learned yesterday, and the Americans and their allies are learning the hard way today, entering Afghanistan is always easy. It's staying there and reining in Afghans, that is the difficult part. The US invasion of 2001 had been a cakewalk too. The real war started in 2005. Today, Americans are desperate to cut and run, as fast as they can. Not for nothing is Afghanistan known as "the graveyard of empires".

I have genuine sympathy for President Obama. He's plain unlucky to inherit this mess from his predecessor, not to mention the devastation on economic front. But he cannot help America or himself if he too fails to learn from history.

The US wouldn't be in this mess and our world would have been a more peaceful place, if the US and the West had made even half the effort they've been investing in these unjust wars to confront the sources that continue to fuel this conflict. Instead of fighting phantoms in Afghanistan-Pakistan, Obama should take on the forces that have given birth to those phantoms.

- Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based commentator. Write to him at [email protected]