1) Some of you are not going to like this column, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

2) After 9/11, the Bush administration had two strategic objectives: destroy al-Qaeda regimes that gave them safe harbor, and rebuild Middle Eastern states as stable democracies.

3) I would argue that while failing miserably at the second, for the most part Bush then President Trump---with no help from Zero---accomplished the first.

4) Think about this: except for the memorials today, when was the last time anyone even mentioned al-Qaeda or OBL?

5) Indeed, this week the biggest news was that OBL's niece SUPPORTS TRUMP!

6) Unquestionably Zero's regime destabilized Libya, Egypt for a while, & other ME resorts. And we paid the price for that with ISIS.

7) So, without downplaying the horror of ISIS or its early success . .

7) contd . . . when was the last time anyone mentioned ISIS except for Trump to note that he destroyed them?

8) The strategic goal of eliminating the main purveyors of Islamic terror (Iran as a separate issue) has succeeded. Trump finished the job, but no question Bush . . .

8) contd . . . started it.

9) The wisdom at the time of not declaring war on every single Islamic country or alienating all our Islamic allies, including Saudi Arabia, was shown early in Trump's administration when he met with the Saudis & forged new deals.

10) The fact that no one even mentions the terrorist organizations is one thing, but the fact that, with a brief exception mostly in Asia, here and there, that they have been unable to carry out any kind of serious attacks is another.

11) The means by which that was achieved is something many hate to acknowledge. It is a time-tested strategy for luring out an enemy that hides or seeks to conserve its strength. It works against non-western powers who want to avoid straight up war.

12) It also works against a westernized power like Nazi Germany that wanted to protect its Luftwaffe air assets against a superior foe.

13) That strategy involves forcing the enemy out, forcing him to come to you. At Ulundi in 1879, the outnumbered, but . . .

13) contd . . . vastly superior British, forced the Zulu army to meet them in an open field, where their firepower decimated the numerically superior force.

14) In World War II, the tactics were the same, but the scenario different. The US & Britain needed to eliminate . . .

14) contd. . . the Luftwaffe before an invasion of Europe could begin. To do that, they (at first) bombed aircraft & ball bearing factories, then they noticed something:

They were shooting down German planes en masse, especially after long-range fighter escorts were provided.

15) At Ulundi, British casualties were small, but the cost of the air war over Europe was great. At one time, the most dangerous place any serviceman could be was in a B-17---more dangerous than on a Pacific beach.

16) But it worked. By 1944, the Germans were spending . . .

16) contd . . . 40% of their war resources just trying to stop the bombers. They lost the TANK battle of Kursk because they were outnumbered in the air, and couldn't use their deadly Ju-87 Stuka tank busters.

17) The US & coalition troops in Afghanistan, and, later, Iraq . . .

17) contd. . . maybe inadvertently were manifesting the same strategy. The presence of American forces in a location where they could be attacked, resulted in such a massive evisceration of al-Qaeda that by 2008 they had lost virtually all their fighting power.

18) There were stories of al-Qaeda fighters from all over the world coming do die in Iraq.

19) Later, President Trump slightly modified the strategy with ISIS to draw down the troops, but keep a presence enough to lure out the enemy and slaughter them.

20) The fact that today neither al-Qaeda nor ISIS even lists in the top 10 concerns of Americans is something we should ponder . . . and be thankful for.