"When it comes to the next phase of the struggle, all eyes are on Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, ISIS, and a number of other groups maintain operations in the country, but they are overshadowed by the larger conflict playing out between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which are both struggling for control of the country in the wake of the United States' withdrawal. In 2020, the United States and the Taliban reached a peace agreement in which the Taliban promised "to prevent any group or individual, including al-Qa'ida, from using the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies." Will the Taliban make good on their promise? Judging by the Abbottabad papers, not all Taliban members were equal in the eyes of al Qaeda, which had long suspected that some Taliban factions had been seeking rapprochement with the United States. As early as 2007, Atiyah wrote to bin Laden that "forces within the Taliban are distancing themselves from al Qaeda to elude the terrorism accusation." And in 2010, Zawahiri expressed alarm in a letter to bin Laden that the Taliban seemed "psychologically prepared" to accept a deal that would render al Qaeda impotent. Owing to the Taliban's factionalism since 9/11, it may be difficult for the group's leaders to enforce compliance with the terms of their agreement with the United States. The Taliban's factionalism may prove to be an intractable problem for the United States. But al Qaeda's experiences after 9/11 suggest that the same factionalism will also complicate matters for terrorists seeking refuge in Afghanistan. Even a sympathetic host regime is no guarantee of safe haven. Bin Laden learned that lesson the hard way, and Baghdadi later found out that controlling territory was even harder. But Washington and its allies have come to realize (or at least they should have) that an open-ended war on terrorism is futile and that a successful counterterrorism policy must address the legitimate political grievances that al Qaeda claims to champion--for example, U.S. support for dictatorships in the Middle East. Washington cannot quite claim victory against al Qaeda and its ilk, which retain the ability to inspire deadly, if small-scale, attacks. The past two decades, however, have made clear just how little jihadi groups can hope to accomplish. They stand a far better chance of achieving eternal life in paradise than of bringing the United States to its knees."