It took a decade for Al Qaeda to lose its leader. I bet Osama bin Laden never would have believed he would have lasted as long as he did. As far as losing Afghanistan, that seems to have been temporary. So what did they do to the US? They goaded an incompetent administration into launching a ruinous war in Iraq that cost us a trillion bucks and almost 40,000 casualties. Do you really think we would have gone to war in Iraq if it weren’t for 9/11, and who do you think came out ahead on that eschange?