WASHINGTON // Amid the backslapping and celebration in the US capital over the death of Osama bin Laden, debate about the future of American counter-terrorist efforts is already swelling among officials and legislators, in particular, over what kind of intelligence gathering is most effective and how to deal with allies in the fight.
For nearly 10 years the US government has been engaged in what has been called a "global war on terror". In the name of fighting terror, it has invaded two countries and conducted covert operations in an unknown number of others, deploying hundreds of thousands of US military personnel and spending more than a trillion US dollars.
With the death of the man regarded by many Americans as their most iconic enemy, questions about the war are inevitable.
According to Michael Rubin, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, bin Laden's death will "restart the debate about what's going to happen to the war on terrorism".
Already, there is renewed controversy over the methods that the US government has employed in interrogating suspected members of terrorist organisations.
John Yoo, a former US Justice Department official who wrote secret legal memorandums justifying brutal interrogations, said the success of the Obama administration in hunting down bin Laden vindicated its predecessor's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques".
"President Obama can take credit, rightfully, for the success today," Mr Yoo wrote on Monday in the National Review, "but he owes it to the tough decisions taken by the Bush administration."
Nevertheless, it was not immediately clear what, if any, of the information that led to bin Laden's whereabouts came from harsh questioning of suspected militants and how much came from the use of electronic eavesdropping. Obama administration officials were not saying.
Beyond the issue of how best to gain "actionable" intelligence, the death of bin Laden at the hands of a relatively small, elite commando unit will probably rekindle questions over the superiority of "targeted killings" in contrast to the large-scale counter-terrorism operations favoured by the previous US administration.
Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr Obama had envisioned that his national defence strategy would emphasise the former but had been bogged down by the inertia of his predecessor's legacy.
"[Obama] inherited counterinsurgency from the Bush administration, and needed to carry through with that, but anybody paying attention over the past couple of years sees a dramatic increase in drone strikes, which are a form of targeted killing.
"I think that's where the inclination is among decision-makers, especially the president," said Mr Cook, who sees bin Laden's death as a symbolic blow to the global jihadist movement but not a crushing one.
The death of bin Laden may have been just the precedent the Obama administration had been looking for, and yet, American politicians will have to struggle with some unpredictable allies in South Asia. Pakistan, a key US ally in counterterrorism operations, has been put under a critical eye in Washington for its potential role in harbouring bin Laden.
In the belief that it was impossible for at least some Pakistani authorities not to know of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, legislators are demanding that US aid to the country be slashed. That belief is shared by Rick Nelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank.
"We'll never know who knew and who didn't know, but I can't imagine Osama bin Laden would be hiding in the type of facility where he was found in the area that he was found, and he didn't enjoy some support from the government," Mr Nelson said.
Despite the official co-operation that many here believe bin Laden received in Pakistan, both Pakistan and the US "have no alternative but to try and make [their relationship] work", said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution.
There is little "love or trust on either side. But it could be even worse. Both have no alternative but to try to make it work," Mr Mann said.
While Mr Obama may have his work cut out with his Pakistani counterparts, he will face another fight, this time on the domestic front, as he stands for re-election in 2012.
Republicans lost a crucial party plank with bin Laden's death. Their argument that Democrats like Mr Obama are weak on security has been undercut.
After the news of bin Laden's demise, Mr Obama's approval ratings jumped to 57 per cent, up 11 per cent from the preceding week according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.
The political battle, however, is likely to reach far beyond America's counter-terrorism policies. For Mr Obama, any momentum that he gains will ultimately be weighed against a time-tested standard - the economy.
"When push comes to shove this is a tremendous accomplishment by President Obama, and certainly it may not have been the 3am phone call, but it showed that he knew how to answer the call when it came, but ultimately Americans are going to vote on the economy as always," Mr Rubin said.
