"Separating the assassination of bin Laden from the Middle East situation in general is, as far as I'm concerned, insane."

The Arab Spring has left al Qaeda marginalised and irrelevant.
They have been trying to overthrow the likes of Mubarak for twenty years or more.
Ordinary pro-democratic people managed it peacefully in a few weeks where extreme violence and anti-democracy failed.
(A lesson for Ireland's dissidents if the lesson of US Civil Rights movement was not enough.)

No doubt they will try to exploit the power vacuum, but ordinary decent Arabs have no time for them.
There has been no outcry over his killing on the Arab Street.