Osama bin Laden's death in his Pakistani hiding place is like the removal of a tumor from the Muslim world. But aggressive followup therapy will be required to prevent the remaining al-Qaida cells from metastasizing by acquiring more adherents who believe in violence to achieve the "purification" and empowerment of Islam.
Fortunately, bin Laden's death comes at the very moment when much of the Islamic world is being convulsed by the treatment that bin Laden's brand of fanaticism requires: the Arab Spring, with its demands for democratic empowerment (and the absence of demands, at least so far, for the type of Islamic rule that al-Qaida sought to impose).
But can the nascent democracies being built in Egypt and Tunisia, and sought in Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, see off the threats posed by Islamic extremists? In particular, can it defeat the Salafi/Wahhabi thought that has long nurtured bin Laden and his ilk, and which remains the professed and protected ideology of Saudi Arabia?