On top of Gordon Brown and George W. Bush's joint warning to Iran, there's a bit of other news on the Anglo-American cooperation front. The Times of London reports that Bush has asked Britain's elite special forces to aid in a final, reinvigorated effort to capture Osama bin Laden, who is presumed to be hiding in northern Pakistan:

The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.

Now, besides the obvious question (if the Brits can't trust themselves with sensitive al Qaeda information, why should the United States?) what is perhaps most interesting about this story is the effect Bin Laden's capture would have on the 2008 presidential campaign. Who benefits most: John McCain or Barack Obama?

Nailing the world's most wanted man might help to save Bush's legacy, but I'm not so sure that either candidate would score a clear victory. After all, are the differences here, at least in rhetoric, all that different? In a speech this past weekend John McCain vowed to capture al Qaeda's leader. Barack Obama has advocated a beefed-up military force along the lawless Afghanistan-Pakistan border and criticized Bush for failing to nab Osama.

And would putting Bin Laden behind bars really alter the fundamentals of this race? At the end of the day, McCain will still support a war that 64 percent of Americans don't agree with and Obama will still be the candidate of a political party that can't shake its reputation as being weak on security.

Readers, what do you think?

It's tough to catch al Qaeda personnel when intelligence on their top leaders is scarce, but it's even more difficult to run an effective counterterrorism program when your country's spies leave sensitive documents in public places. That's what happened today in England.

This mind-boggling security breach occurred when a passenger spotted an orange folder that had been left on a train, and upon discovering its contents, handed it to the BBC:

The two reports were assessments made by the government's Joint Intelligence Committee.

One, on Iraq's security forces, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. According to the BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, it included a top-secret and in some places 'damning' assessment of Iraq's security forces,

The other document, reportedly entitled 'Al-Qaeda Vulnerabilities', was commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office.

Just seven pages long but classified as 'UK Top Secret,' this latest intelligence assessment on al-Qaeda is so sensitive that every document is numbered and marked 'for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only,' according to our correspondent."

Sound familiar? Several weeks ago, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier resigned after it was discovered that he left classified NATO documents at an ex-girlfriend's house.

I have to give the edge to Bernier here. At least he might have been trying to impress his female company with his top-secret documents.

The New America Foundation's Steve Coll and Peter Bergen were on CNN the other day, and they made some encouraging comments to Wolf Blitzer:

WOLF BLITZER (Host): [...] What's the latest in terms of the hunt for bin Laden? Is the U.S. and the West any closer to finding him?

STEVE COLL (President, CEO of New America Foundation): Well, I'm not aware of any specific intelligence that has lit up the trail in the last six months or so, but the circumstances in which he's hiding have changed. And he's probably in Pakistan and there his popularity has declined considerably, and also you've got a new government in power, so the motivations on the Pakistani side are changing very quickly.

BLITZER: What do you think, Peter?

PETER BERGEN (New America's Schwartz Senior Fellow): Yes, I think the hunt for bin Laden is going very poorly. As Steve said, bin Laden's support is evaporating in the North-West Frontier Province, where he's almost certainly hiding. A recent poll showed he had dropped from 70 percent favorable in August of 2007 to 4 percent.

BLITZER: So wouldn't that make it easier for Pakistani or other -- or the U.S., Afghan troops, somebody to find him?

PETER BERGEN: Yes. And I think the short answer is yes. Also a very sharp decline in support for suicide bombings amongst Pakistanis. Unfortunately, on the other hand, you have got a Pakistani government which is doing a deal with some of the militants in the North-West Frontier Province at the same time. So as always, sort of a mixed message here with the Pakistanis.

If the Pakistanis can convince those militants to dime out their special guest, it might all be worth it.

(Hat tip: Sameer Lalwani)

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, our Web editor, Blake Hounshell, ably deflated some of the optimism surrounding the surge. The security gains are impressive, he contends, but the deadly combination of underdevelopment and overeliance on oil make Iraq's political prospects grim. Far better to cut our losses and focus on Afghanistan ("the real fight against Al Qaeda").

But what is it that Blake would have us do in Afghanistan? If Iraq's political prospects are poor, Afghanistan's must be considered even worse. Afghanistan doesn't have oil (yet), but it is one of the world's least developed countries, with infrastructure decimated by a quarter century of war and no history of effective governance. Why then spend billions and risk hundreds of lives propping up a doomed democratic government?

On Blake's logic, it's hard to see the rationale. Commandos and Predator drones can wage the "real fight" against the al Qaeda luminaries in the Pakistani hinterlands with or without an effective central government. Is Blake then willing to jettison the doomed Afghan nation-building project? And, if not, why not?

Blake also believes that cutting Iraq loose will free up America's taxed diplomats to concentrate on managing the rise of China. This has become something of a mantra on the left recently (indeed, it's almost "drearily familiar"). And it's not implausible -- Iraq is consuming vast quanities of senior executive time and energy. But I've never understood what precisely the United States could be doing vis-à-vis China that the Iraq mission now renders impossible. The U.S. has been engaging China economically, tamping down Taiwanese separatism, and working with Beijing diplomatically on North Korea. In sum, an accomodationist stance designed to guide China toward responsible great- power status. What vast benefit would our China policy enjoy once we've cast off the nettlesome Maliki and millions of ordinary Iraqis with him?

It can be tough to get out of the shadow of a famous sibling, and that's especially true if you're an airplane enthusiast and your brother is the world's most famous terrorist. Luxury goods entrepreneur and aviator Yeslam bin Ladin, half-brother of Osama, just can't see why anyone would find it odd that he's launching a line of specialty watches for pilots.

To be fair to Bin Ladin (he spells his last name differently), he has publicly denounced terrorism and hasn't had any links with his notorious younger brother for decades. It's also worth remembering that they are only two out of 54 siblings, but I still have a hard time believing that Yeslam didn't anticipate the aviation theme being an issue. Ironically, their father Mohammed died in a plane crash.

The watches sell for up to $9,472. If you're feeling flush, you can also buy "Yeslam" brand perfume and handbags from his store in Geneva, Switzerland. In the future, Bin Ladin may want to avoid adding some other items to his line, such as digital timers or vests.

This is still developing, but a senior U.S. counterterrorism official is saying that al Qaeda operative Abu Obaidah al-Masri has died of natural causes.

In September, al-Masri made our list of major al Qaeda figures who are still at large and was described by Rand Corporation terrorism analyst Seth Jones as “probably the most active and most important” figure we included. He played a major role in coordinating attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is thought to have been one of the architects of the foiled 2006 trans-Atlantic airliner plot. This is a significant loss for al Qaeda.

AFP/Getty Images

The wait may finally be over.

Back in December, al Qaeda's No.2 Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that he was taking questions from the viewers of his Web videos. The sheikh apparently received over 2,000 questions and the IntelCenter monitoring service now expects the first of his video replies within the week. Watch this space for more analysis when this "Web 2.0" mass murderer addresses his public.

UPDATE: The first installment is in. Zawahiri says al Qaeda doesn't kill innocent people. The full transcript is available as a pdf here, thanks to Laura Mansfield.

I was struck today by the disturbing parallels between sentiments expressed by a Tibetan social worker and Osama bin Laden. Here's the social worker:

Tibetan youth are frustrated," the social worker says. She talks about her 21-day hunger strike in front of the United Nations office in New York, meant to raise awareness about the Tibetans' plight. "It didn't help," she says bitterly. The first TV cameras arrived only after 12 days. "But when a bomb explodes or a house goes up in flames," she says, "the UN is right there. The world only reacts to violence. Just like in Kosovo."

And here's Bin Laden, in his most recent tape:

Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron... Our enemies did not take over Palestinian through negotiations, but rather, by force."

Of course, the social worker isn't advocating violence, but merely commenting on how it seems to be the only way to get attention. And Bin Laden isn't calling for Palestinian autonomy, but the destruction of Israel (nor is he saying anything that Gamal Abdel Nasser didn't say 40 years ago). Both quotes nonetheless underline why it's so important to make negotiations and dialogue work. Because when they fail, those who say that violence is the answer will begin to win the argument.

Memri translated a Qatari newspaper's interesting interview with a fellow named Abu Turab al-Jazairi, who says he is al Qaeda's in Mesopotamia's northern commander in Iraq. In it, Jazairi acknowledges his organization is in trouble, but vows to fight on.

It is the type of attacks and the way they are planned that will be changed. Accordingly, we will be focusing on operations that cause the maximum pain and bewilderment to the enemy. This [shift] will open a new page in the fighting, which you will notice on the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq..."

Then, in an eerie parallel to the umpteen newspaper columnists who repeatedly aver that "the next six months" will be decisive in Iraq, Jazairi says:

The next few months will prove decisive, and by Allah! We have prepared for this - we have humiliated the Crusaders, and have made their blood flow in the streets... And what is to come will be even worse and more bitter. Therefore, I say to those who claim that we have failed, or are paralyzed...: You will receive our answer in the next few weeks..."

Stay tuned.

(Hat tip: Pat Lang)

Justin Webb, the BBC's North America editor and blogger, drops this incendiary bomb:

Islamic terrorists want war. They want suffering - among others and their own people alike.

They would surely surmise that McCain will give them what they want. Bin Laden himself intervened with what many thought was the effect of keeping President Bush in power in 2004 with that weird tape just before the poll.

I think al-Qaeda would back McCain - that is not an argument for or against America backing him, but it seems to me that the vague assumption that the terrorists would back a lefty is lazy thinking...

This is grossly irresponsible on Webb's part. It was wrong when right-wing pundits and politicians said al Qaeda wanted to elect John Kerry in 2004, and it's wrong when left-wing pundits and politicians say al Qaeda wants to elect John McCain today. The truth is, al Qaeda doesn't really have a sophisticated understanding of the American political system -- and its leaders likely see McCain and Obama or Clinton as merely two faces of the same enemy.

Now, would al Qaeda like to see the United States stay in Iraq for another four, eight years? It's certainly possible. Iraq is a great recruiting magnet. It's also possible, though, that al Qaeda would like the United States to withdraw so that it can declare "victory" while it still plausibly can. But I don't think Justin Webb -- or anyone else -- can really say for sure which outcome al Qaeda would prefer.

It's only nine days into the new year, and already Musharraf is ignoring our humble advice: Find Osama. Musharraf needs a miracle to hold onto his tenuous grip on power, and there's nothing quite like delivering the most wanted man in the world to the United States' doorstep to rewrite your political fortunes, at least in Washington's eyes.

So, why is Musharraf going around saying that Pakistan is "not particularly looking for" al Qaeda's leader? In an interview with 60 Minutes, he was quick to assert that Pakistan is "operating against terrorists and al Qaeda and militant Taliban," but then claimed that he "can't say for sure" whether extremists have grown stronger in the border regions, despite squarely blaming extremists in those very border regions for assassinating Benazir Bhutto, whom he essentially blamed for her own death. This is the United States' best hope for an ally?

One of my favorite characters in Charlie Wilson's War (the book, not the schlocky Hollywood flick) is Michael Vickers, the wonkish ex-Green Beret and CIA paramilitary officer who, at the tender age of 31, masterminded the weapons and guerrilla warfare strategy used by the Afghan mujahedin to fight the Soviets. By all accounts, Vickers is brilliant, and he was critical to the success of the CIA's covert program, in which the United States funneled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons through Pakistan's intelligence services. Though the CIA never funded al Qaeda and the Taliban did not yet exist, many people blame U.S. policy—in which Vickers played such a key role—for fanning the flames of Islamic radicalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan that later came back to bite the United States on 9/11.

For years, Vickers toiled away on boring but influential reports for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank with close ties to the Pentagon. But as of July 2007, Vickers is now an assistant secretary of defense with an enormous portfolio: winning the war on terrorism. Vickers oversees Special Operations Command, whose budget has recently doubled to $6 billion in 2008, and he's especially concerned about... Pakistan's growing Islamic radicalism. Funny, that.

Testifying before Congress back in March 2006, before moving to the Pentagon, Vickers predicted that the future of the global war on terrorism (GWOT) would "likely be a protracted, indirect and clandestine fight in scores [of] countries with which the U.S. is not at war." He added:

The GWOT is an intelligence and special operation-intensive war. Getting this aspect of interagency organization right, and making full use of special authorities to wage the indirect and clandestine fight, is imperative. Particularly important in this regard is leveraging the CIA's Title 50 authority for [Special Operations Forces] operations through flexible detailing of SOF personnel to the Agency.

What Vickers is reportedly doing now as assistant secretary, described in Friday's Washington Post, seems to reflect the same approach:

Vickers's plan to build a global counterterrorist network... is focused on a list of 20 "high-priority" countries, with Pakistan posing a central preoccupation for Vickers, who said al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the country's western tribal areas are a serious threat to the United States. The list also includes Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Yemen, Somalia and Iran, and Vickers hints that some European countries could be on it. Beyond that, the plan covers another 29 "priority" countries, as well as "other countries" that Vickers does not name.

Since 9/11, there have been occasional tensions between U.S. diplomats on the one hand, and the DoD and the CIA on the other, over clandestine activities that have gone on without the knowledge of the ambassador. If Vickers is inserting more special ops teams around the world, those tensions are bound to increase.

One of Vickers's former colleagues says he "tends to think like a gangster." It's a mindset that has served Vickers well in the past, yet it carries risks. If Vickers's teams nail Osama bin Laden in northwest Pakistan, he'll be hailed as a genius. If, on the other hand, they cause an international incident... 

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A lot of blogs have posted on this Christian Science Monitor column, in which Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz writes of an encounter he had with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Romney has denied making the remark in exactly this way, though he has a history of making sweeping, controversial comments about Muslims.

Others have noted that if Romney's alleged comments are taken at face value, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni Muslim of Afghan descent, would not have a place in his cabinet. But as Josh Marshall put it, it's basically a "he said, he said" situation, so we don't know whose account of the conversation to trust.

But we do know something about Mansour Ijaz. Interestingly, he pops up in a footnote on page 480 of the 9/11 Commission report as a messenger to the Clinton administration from the Sudanese government, which asked him to convey a 1997 offer to cooperate on Osama Bin Laden. But Clinton's national security council saw Sudan as "all talk and little action," and didn't move on the letter. Ijaz maintains the offer was sincere, and that extradition was on the table. But Clinton-era officials such as Richard Clarke, whom Ijaz accuses of lying about his record, have disputed that account, and more or less dismiss Ijaz as a fabricator. In his sworn testimony (pdf) to the 9/11 Commission, Clarke said of Bin Laden, "Sudan at no time detained him, nor was there ever a credible offer by Sudan to arrest and render him." Moreover, the 9/11 report doesn't mention "extradition" specifically—just a vague offer of cooperation. Presumably, if there were some there there, the Commission would not have buried Sudan's offer in a footnote.

When Osama bin Laden released his latest video back in early September, White House security adviser Fran Townsend dismissed the al Qaeda leader as "a man on the run in a cave who is virtually impotent other than his ability to get these messages out."  A new West Point study of the organization's capabilities would seem to agree:

Its successful attacks on America, first on the embassies in Africa and then on 9/11, gave al-Qa’ida’s message an immediate global audience, but the American military response to these attacks have so seriously degraded its organizational capacities that management of that message has been virtually all that al-Qa’ida Central has subsequently been able to muster.

In other words, the organizational structure is broken, but the message is thriving. And bin Laden's savvy ability to manage the al Qaeda "brand," as the authors of the report call it, may actually be the real danger.  

 ...al-Qa’ida’s real strength has never been as a guerrilla fighting force; rather its strength comes from its ability to transform the local concerns of Islamist activists into what this report describes as “a unifying vision of apocalyptic inter-civilizational conflict”. Because these capabilities and their proponents are still in place, al-Qa`ida continues to achieve success.

Effective counterterrorism must better address these capabilities. The tools and prescriptions needed to do so will fall largely outside the realm of the military options that have done so well against the first faction. Eroding al-Qa’ida’s brand appeal—reducing its share of the ideological marketplace —will require innovative and multi-lateral approaches with the US hand rarely seen or suspected.

Al Qaeda can't take on the full might of the U.S. military. But its ability to effectively fight a brand war with the country that created Madison Avenue might be just as remarkable. Do you think bin Laden watches Mad Men?