Al-Qaeda Threat Low in US

Good news from the Las Vegas Review Journal. Something here for both sides: "You almost can't define al-Qaida just as an entity that you can put on an organizational chart. It has now expanded to an ideology that has gotten quite dangerous." Imagine no war in Iraq and the resources tied up there applied to OBL and his network. How can the Iraq strategy be effective when it creates an expansion of Al-Qaeda ideology? The other side will argue: the focal point has moved from the United States to Iraq because the various terrorist organizations want to beat the United States there, akin to how jihadists ran the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. But in the administration's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq they concede AQ terrorists are the minority in the enemy camp. Surely there's a more cost-effective way—both in terms of blood and treasure—to confront the real murderers of 9/11 than to stage a war in which they play a tangential role.