T he discovery, death and sea-burial of Osama bin Laden is rapidly becoming a happy playground for conspiracy theorists.
Despite the welcome openness of the Obama administration -- demonstrated by the long press conference given on Monday by John Brennan, the president's advisor on counter-terrorism -- there are still a dozen unanswered questions that come quickly to mind.
On such occasions I tend to turn for guidance to Robert Fisk, formerly of The Times and now of The Independent, who lives in Beirut, knows the Middle East like the back of his hand and met bin Laden more than once.
Yesterday, like others, he dismissed Pakistan's insistence that it knew nothing of bin Laden's presence -- but added the fascinating thought that it was probably the Pakistan government itself which betrayed that presence to the Americans. Why?
Fisk had plenty of theories but to me the most persuasive was that, with the revolution of an Arab Spring looking to a modern future, bin Laden's aim of returning to the past of an Islamic Caliphate was no longer relevant. It makes sense.
If bin Laden's day is past why continue to protect a man whose presence is a risk and an embarrassment?
(Thanks to Robert Fisk also for telling me that Abbottabad, the area where bin Laden lived, was named after a major in the British Army in the days of Empire!)
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