Al-Qaeda's goal is a restoration of the world to what they perceive to be its golden age: an era when an armed Islam united under a supreme Caliph was the world's uncontested superpower.
Anything America does or fails to do is a sufficient excuse for their hatred.
Modifying our policies in any way will not change the fact that we are powerful and not Muslim.
That may be true of many members of AQ...that has probably always been true of a small number of Muslims...nevertheless, radical Islam is like Communism...it will, if left to itself, never amount to much. Its a nihilistic, regressive movement that will be rejected by the vast majority of Muslims. Its only strength now comes from being able to recruit large numbers of young Muslim males willing to kill themselves...and, US intelligence and experts on this have said over and over that they have successfully exploited Amercian policy to spread their jihadist message.
Its amazing to me that a Presidential candidate can claim he's never heard that US interventionism in the middle east and US-led sanctions on Iraq were reasons AQ attacked the US on 9/11...and Rudy claims to be expert on terrorism?