What Is This World Coming To?

Bad news for the Democrats. Even the Washington Post is admitting that al-Qaeda is losing its war against the United States:

Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda’s allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group’s core leadership.

While cautioning that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat, Hayden said Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents.”

“Largely,” but not completely. Osama’s task is to convince his followers that the United States is an evil, Satanic entity that deserves to have destruction visited upon it as a matter of religious duty. So Osama can still use clips from Democratic candidates, or taped sermons by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or a copy of Scott McClellan’s book to help him make his case to new recruits.

Perhaps that is one reason that terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman is skeptical: “al Qaeda’s obituary has been written far too often in the past few years for anyone to declare victory,” he told the WP. “I agree that there has been progress. But we’re indisputably up against a very resilient and implacable enemy.”

(It’s hard to be sure if the ‘resilient and implacable enemy’ Hoffman is speaking of here is Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Scott McClellan. All of them seem quite resilient to me.)

The WP wasn’t willing to concede the point, but it did quote Hayden saying we’re winning in Iraq without following up with a paragraph disputing the contention. Maybe its true, after all.

But don’t tell the Democrats. They’ll just produce a new list of “Reasons For Jihad” talking points. Better to just win the war and tell them later.