The first thing that jumped out of the picture being assembled was the fact that terrorism was dominated by dozens of interwoven groups all related to Palestinian roots. It was obvious that our policy toward Arafat would need to change.
The second thing was that we could not just "lop" off the head of Al Qaeda and expect it to go away. We would need to infiltrate (in many ways) and map out as much of the organization as possible before going after the leaders. Al-Zawahiri is probably more dangerous than bin Laden, so we need to get him first, not the other way around. Leaving bin Laden in place might even be a viable strategy for discovery.
The third thing was that such a widespread network needs support from nation states and we would have to attack this support base just as surely as any other part of the network and this was the only part that we could begin to pressure immediately. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran were on the hot list. Direct connections and explicit collaboration were never a requirement, because the basis of Al Qaeda's success has been it's dispersal and institutional "deniability", which make responses difficult.
The implicit connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda has always been obvious and the extreme danger of an explicit exchange of weapons sophistication has always been the driving force behind our strategy. To see it any other way is irresponsible and usually a tell-tale that the view holder has not surveyed the background territory very well at all.
Well said!