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In two articles, Strategy Page states that as a result of the war in Iraq, Al Qaeda has been decimated. From May 2nd (via Instapundit):
May 2, 2006: Without much fanfare or publicity, American and British commandoes have taken apart al Qaeda's operation in Iraq.
... The Task Force has been so successful that, except for Zarqawi, there are no more foreigners (Saudis, Jordanians, etc) in the Iraqi al Qaeda leadership. It's all Iraqis, and these guys are proving just as vulnerable to informers as the foreigners (who stood out because of their accent and body language) were. Most Sunni Arabs are tired of all the violence, and are backing the government by passing on (and getting paid for) tips on where Zarqawi and his crew are hiding out.
From April 30th:
April 30, 2006: Despite the many brickbats of the media, al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq, and is now retreating to lick its wounds where it can. If it can. Just over four and a half years, al Qaeda has gone from being the dominant terrorist group in the world to a defeated shell of its former self. In trying to defeat the United States, al Qaeda made three big mistakes: They fought the last information war, they underestimated the American leadership, and they also managed to anger the Iraqi people.
...The third mistake was to wage a campaign of terror against Iraqi civilians. This was intended to intimidate them into at least acquiescing to al Qaeda's presence, if not supporting al Qaeda at all. It didn't work. Instead, as the car bombs went off , and drew CNN headlines in the United States, al Qaeda managed to become more and more unpopular with Iraqis. Even the Arab Sunnis began to view the Americans, who had displaced them from the power they had held under Saddam, as a better option than supporting al Qaeda. Eventually, the Sunnis joined the democratic process and when that happened, al Qaeda's eventual defeat was assured with increasing Sunni participation over three elections in the space of less than a year.
These three mistakes resulted in the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, a defeat has left that group largely discredited. Osama bin Laden is now reduced to making audio tapes with grand pronouncements which have little or no likelihood of ever becoming reality, since al Qaeda has no safe havens where they can train new recruits, nor countries willing to support them. In less than five years, al Qaeda has gone from being feared by the world, to little more than a sideshow in the long war that the United States is now fighting.
The argument by the critics of the war, that Hussein had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, implied that the war in Iraq could do no harm to Al Qaeda. We now see that that argument was incorrect, and that the war has been successful in damaging the organization that carried out 911.
The critics of the war have no strategy for preventing future terrorist attacks on the U.S. GWB carried out a strategy that, per Strategy Page, has made great achievements toward preventing such attacks.
