Al-Qaeda's Looming Irrelevancy?

At Time mag's Global Spin, Tony Karon tosses al-Qaeda toward the proverbial dust-bin of history:

The Fourth International was marginal even before Trotsky was killed by Stalin; after his death it scarcely garnered any attention at all, and was riddled with the sorts of doctrinal splits that the Monty Python team loved to parody. Unlike the harmless if fervent Fourth International, of course, Al-Qaeda is a vicious gang of thugs that has killed thousands of people. But even if its supporters manage occasionally to add to its body count, history has condemned it to go the way of the Fourth International.

The entire essay is here.  Well worth a read.