We appear to be at war with Al Qaeda, Jack, but that's just surface noise. What this war is really about is an attempt by Anglo-Israel-America to control much of the world's oil supply and to dominate the Middle Eastern and central Asian area in order to do that. This tramples on the mostly Muslim population of that area in a variety of ways, and causes them sufferering and distress...so they fight back. If Al Qaeda were to vanish utterly, this war would still go on, and new "Al Qaedas" would appear from the shadows and assume the role of the new official "enemy" of Anglo-Israel-America.
Al Qaeda is a symptom of a problem that existed long before Al Qaeda did. Any American president is the Muslim world's nightmare as long as the Anglo-American imperial objectives remain in play.