I dunno, I think that Al-Qaeda coming in from all over has really turned public opinion in many places in the Middle East against them.
Many look at what they were trying to do in Iraq, which was start a Civil War, and they see Muslim killing Muslim as not the way to do this, and it turns people against Al-Qaeda.
That said, I think we had two options in Iraq.
1) Pull out. This (at the time) would have guaranteed a civil war that would have been blamed on the United States. I think that this would have not only given the extremists their "rallying call" but also alienated the moderates because they see the US as backing out of our word.
2) Stay. Yes it was going to get violent, and yes it was going to be hard, but since we stayed, we have been able to turn public opinion against Al-Qaeda not only in Iraq, but I would argue in many other places as well. Further, moderate Arabs still view the US legitimately because we have kept our word.
Given the two options that we were presented with, I think we made the correct call by not pulling out because long run it stabilizes Iraq and also diminishes the Al-Qaeda threat, which was a goal in the overall "war on terror."
