In a matter of months, both leaders of the Qaeda-allied Taliban in Pakistan have been targeted and killed by US drone attacks. The latest was in retaliation for the murder of CIA officials in a suicide attack by a double agent who turned on the US. If you add this record - and there are many examples of similar surgical strikes decapitating Qaeda figures in the last year - to the ramp-up of forces in Afghanistan and overhaul of strategy there, I think you can make a very solid case that in the war on Jihadist terrorism, Obama is proving far more effective - in both soft and hard power - than the Bush administration ever was.

The Republicans will not concede this, because their war is not really at this point on al Qaeda. It's on Obama.

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