"The twenty-first century will be the American century... [T]he twenty-first century truly began on September 11, 2001, ten years later, when planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon... Al Qaeda has failed in its goals. The United States has succeeded, not so much in winning the war as in preventing the Islamists from winning, and, from a geopolitical perspective, that is good enough... The twenty-first century has begun with an American success that on the surface looks like not only a defeat but a deep political and moral embarrassment."