Al Qaeda Changed the World—but Not in the Way It Expected
“This battle will take time and resolve,” President George W. Bush declared on September 12, 2001. “But make no mistake about it: we will win.” For much of the next two decades, pursuing victory in the “war on terror” would serve as the central fixation of American foreign policy. Yet even as the United States invaded two countries and launched drone strikes in others, a basic question was never answered: What would it mean to “win”?