That said, the al Qaeda "war on the West" is not going well at all.
I think you're probably right there. The trouble is, al Queda is a loose-knit, barely-structed 'organisation' that seems to exist largely to inspire others to do the dirty work. Remember that in Arabic the name merely means 'the base' in the sense of a springboard or foundation.
Al Queda itself does not plant bombs, hijack vehicles or kidnap people; it has legions of wannabes to do that, many of whom are prepared to act on the indirect inspiration of al Queda and therafter claim the attrocity for al Queda.
The other problem is that, although the 'war on the west' may appear torpid from al Queda's point of view, the war against terror (twat) is proving to be extraordinarly costly, in terms of human lives, materiel and the liberty and human rights of civilians across the globe.
More US personnel have now died in Iraq than on 9/11, and in pursuit of a war that has had the net result of having more terrorists today than existed in April 2003.
In August 2000 the USA was hated by a small group of essentially crackpot hardline militants calling themselves al Queda. Today it is probably fair to say that the USA is hated by millions.
And the tragedy is that that is not down to al Queda; that is entirely down to George W Bush. In that sense, George's war on the west is going remarkably well!