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The reality is that al Qaeda has been trying to attack the United States since long before Iraq.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein brutally repressed all forms of opposition to his regime, and before the Iraq War, al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq.

Staying in a very public fight with the U.S. is exactly what Al Qaeda wants.

The United States does not view our authority to use military force against Al Qaeda as being restricted solely to 'hot' battlefields like Afghanistan.

We have to face the fact that ISIS and its army of like-minded jihadists are determined to win that war and believe they are on the path to victory. They may well be right.

A war on Al-Qaeda could have been won with a decisive military strike in Tora Bora during December 2001, but American fighters at Tora Bora were refused requests for more forces when they trapped Al-Qaeda there; the Pentagon was busy husbanding resources for the Iraqi invasion.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the largest external operation force within al Qaeda.

That is because the conflict with al Qaeda is not governed by the Geneva Conventions, which applies only to international conflicts between states that have signed them.

Al Qaeda still remains a threat.

Iraq is the central battleground in the war on terror. The terrorists certainly know what is at stake, which is why they are pulling out all the stops to derail our efforts there. They know that a free and democratic Iraq is a serious blow to their interests.