George W. Bush used to ask “why haven’t we found bin Laden?” with such regularity that an exasperated official once suggested sending a one-sentence reply back to the president. “Because he’s hiding.”

Now, almost a decade after 9/11, Osama bin Laden has finally been found and killed. His death offers an opportunity to declare an end to the “war on terror”. This is not the same as saying that the US and Europe can now stop worrying about terrorism. The west will need a serious counter-terrorism policy for many years to come.

But the Bush-inspired drive to make terrorism the centrepiece of US foreign policy was a mistake. The declaration of a “Global War on Terror” distorted American foreign policy and led directly to two wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war on terror has guzzled billions of dollars in wasteful spending and spawned a huge and secretive bureaucracy in Washington. The death of bin Laden gives President Barack Obama the cover he needs to start quietly unwinding some of these mistakes.