Al Qaeda continues to take a beating, but you can ignite a media firestorm just saying that.
How can Iraq War critics insist we aren't beating al Qaeda? Because every once in a while, some local jihadis who are losing sign on under the al Qaeda franchise model in an effort to bolster their ranks and regain some lost street cred. These groups become "al Qaeda" but aren't controlled or even helped much by the home corporation in their luxury cave suite in Pakistan:
Al Qaeda is eagerly recruiting other Islamic terrorist organizations, usually ones that have recently taken a big beating in their home country, to become part of al Qaeda. That's about the only growth al Qaeda is experiencing.
Basically, there is a shrinking pool of jihadis and al Qaeda is absorbing more of those jihadis. So al Qaeda appears to be growing, allowing many in the West to insist that al Qaeda is winning--and that our war in Iraq is why we are losing.
But the thrill of jihad is waning. The Moslem street isn't exactly rallying to the jihadi cause because of Iraq. We may be doing poorly in polls of Moslems, but that doesn't mean that many of them want to die a horrible death fighting in some faraway place.
