STRATEGYPAGE: “One of the immediate things known in the wake of the American November elections is that the media strategy employed by al Qaeda has succeeded.”

UPDATE: Related item here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rajat Datta disagrees:

Regarding the stories in StrategyPage and elsewhere about how the Republican defeat shows that Al Qaeda’s media strategy succeeded: bullshit. Who crafted this meme? Karl Rove? To take attention away from the absolute execrable performance about this Republican Congress?

This Republican Congress and administration betrayed fundamental tenets of the Goldwater/Reagan (dare I say, Gingrich?) “revolution” and have become hypocrites. They lost the election because they became figures of contempt; Al Qaeda’s media strategy had nothing to do with the results of this election.

Yes, in the exit polls “corruption” was issue one. Iraq was issue three. And reader Kjell Hagen sees a bright side:

Al Qaeda has been living on the hope that the Democrats will be “surrender monkeys”, and can be scared to defeat. I think the Democrats will be more steadfast about the war in position than opposition. Sensible Democratic politicians, together with Republicans, will ensure that the fight is not hampered.

When Al Qaeda sees that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats will cut and run, they will lose the illusion that all they have to do is to defeat Bush. They will see that whatever party is in power, Al Qaeda faces an unending struggle. This will turn the “media victory” into a bad psychological blow.

In a sense, showing Al Qaeda that both American political parties will fight Al Qaeda relentlessly, is the best thing to do now.

This assumes that the Democrats will not cut and run, of course…

Yes, it does.