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The most important consequence of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of American soldiers and CIA operatives yesterday is the tremendous symbolic effect it will have in strengthening the credibility of American power. For nearly a decade, it appeared that the greatest military force the world has ever known—what with its hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed around the world, predator drone strikes, and global network of undercover intelligence agents—was unable to kill or capture a 54-year-old diabetic hiding in a cave (or, as it turns out, a Pakistani mansion). This agonizing inability to render justice to the fiend who had masterminded the murder of thousands of Americans, destroyed the World Trade Center, forced a massive hole in the Pentagon, and whose global terrorist organization had brought misery and death to so many of his co-religionists, seemed to confirm that we were, in bin Laden’s taunting words, a “weak horse.”

But now that bin Laden has been assassinated, the price for killing American civilians has been clarified for those who would even consider doing our nation, or our friends, harm. As President Obama said last night “justice has been done.” Not enough gratitude can be offered to the men and women in our military and intelligence services who have devoted so much, up to and including their lives, so that this day should come to pass.

That said, the death of bin Laden does not mean that it’s “time to end the war on terror,” as The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel implored the president. This conflict did not hinge on the death of a single leader. For it is the obscurantist religious ideology espoused by bin Laden with which we are at war, and it will survive his death. Hitler’s suicide in the bunker was the coda to the end of World War II, not the cause of it. Even had he been killed in one of the many assassination attempts carried out by heroic Germans, it’s unlikely that the war against European fascism would have ended then and there. The practical effects of bin Laden’s assassination—the trauma it will undoubtedly cause the al-Qaeda command structure—should not be underestimated. But the effort to ensure that Islamic Supremacism does not threaten the United States and its allies will continue for generations, if not forever.

That said, there is another war the United States is waging in which the death of a leader would strike a far more decisive blow, relative to that particular effort, than what bin Laden’s death will do for the war against the forces which attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. That’s in Libya, whose self-appointed leader, Muammar Qaddafi, has been waging war on his own people. On March 3rd, President Obama said the following: “So let me just be very unambiguous about this. Colonel Qaddafi needs to step down from power and leave. That is good for his country. It is good for his people. It’s the right thing to do.” Two months after making that statement, Qaddafi still stands. And he has made it abundantly clear that he will not be leaving by his own volition.

What makes America powerful is not only the size of our military, the strength of our economy or the desirability of our culture—it is our credibility. One of President George W. Bush’s greatest regrets was the premature declaration of “Mission Accomplished” shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. That the mission was far from accomplished struck a massive blow to American credibility. The yawning gap between what the US had declared and the reality on the ground made people around the world, not just in Iraq, doubt our word. So when the president of the United States says that the leader of another country must go, it is up to him to ensure such an outcome.

The problem with our mission in Libya, in addition to the fact that it began much too late, is that its stated end—protecting the Libyan people from the wanton aggression of their tyrant overlord—was at cross purposes with the means being deployed to achieve it. From the very beginning, stopping a massacre in Libya required nothing less than the removal of Qaddafi, preferably by his own volition, but by force if necessary. But the United Nations mandate under which NATO is waging this battle stipulates that the mission cannot go beyond the protection of civilians. The conflict will continue, and more Libyans will needlessly die, as long as this pockmarked megalomaniac remains in control. Get rid of Qaddafi, and the regime crumbles instantly.

President John Quincy Adams famously said, while serving as secretary of state, that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” This remark (more a statement of desire than an observation of fact), along with George Washington’s farewell address and Thomas Jefferson’s warning against “entangling alliances,” has long been the motto of American isolationists, who seek to anchor their support for a circumscribed American global role in the words of the country’s founding fathers. As Robert Kagan explained in the pages of World Affairs not long ago, this view of an America that stands idly by as monsters wreak havoc overseas has never held much sway with the American people. It certainly doesn’t seem to be a popular view today, at least judging by the joyous reactions of Americans celebrating in the streets. We obviously can’t topple all of the world’s dictators, but we have a pretty good track record. As Osama bin Laden’s bullet-ridden corpse sinks to his watery grave, here’s to searching for, and destroying, more monsters.