Caving in

Christopher Hitchens writes “Al-Qaeda is losing”:

I have been attacked for callousness and worse for saying that Bin Laden did us a favor on 9/11, but I am increasingly sure I was right. Until that date, he partially owned Afghanistan and his supporters were moving steadily toward the Talibanization of Pakistan as well. There were al-Qaida sympathizers within the Pakistani intelligence services, armed forces, and nuclear establishment (which then included the A.Q. Khan network). There was also an active Saudi support system, consisting mainly of vast tranches of money, for jihadism worldwide. Now, Afghanistan is lost to Bin Laden and Pakistan has had, at least officially, to modify its behavior considerably. The A.Q. Khan network has been shut down. The Saudi ruling class identifies its state interest with a repudiation of al-Qaida, inside and outside its own borders. And the one remaining regime that openly preached holy war and helped train jihadist forces like the "Fedayeen Saddam"—the pseudo-secular terror state in Iraq—has been irretrievably smashed. Wherever Bin Laden is now, it cannot be where he wanted or hoped to be four and a half years ago.

Only one side is offering a “truce” and it’s the guy huddled in a cave.

Follow-up – Others beg to differ. From the NY Times (natch) here’s “Al Qaeda’s big boast”: “Yet, while Osama bin Laden has seldom used the word "truce," the vision outlined in the rest of the message is not new: a withdrawal of the United States from Muslim lands and a rebalancing between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. (One Qaeda spokesman has insisted that only when America has lost four million people would the field be even.) In other words, this "truce" must be preceded by total capitulation.”