U.S. defeat of al-Qaeda just a fantasy

This is typical of the United States' ability to live in a semi-fantasy world. Al-Qaeda is not a formal movement or force that can be "defeated" in a classical military sense. The reality is probably that American policies around the world, especially in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere, have spurred as many new terrorists as they may have captured or deterred other ones. The nature of terror movements associated with or copying al-Qaeda has changed in recent years in response to the American-led military moves in the region, causing much dispersal and localization of terror groups. Also, al-Qaeda never existed in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. The U.S. essentially created the circumstances that gave birth to al-Qaeda in Iraq. So it's more accurate to say that the U.S. military has not so much defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan as it has dispersed them, exported them, and cloned them elsewhere in the world.