For all your tough talk about leveling countries with tens of millions of people in them, you (like your candidate) fail to understand the nature of jihad. They would not quit, surrender or bother withn infigting, they would immediately obey the new caliph and go on with their business. Kill bin Laden and Zawahiri gets in.
Sure, it's always a good idea to hit enemy command and control, but it's not a magic bullet in any case, and even less so with Al Qaida.
It’s not a magic bullet, a better description would be “that it’s more like zotting trolls”. Except the trolls are the leaders of these countries.
I understand the nature of jihad. We have to tell them what we are going to do as fair warning, then if they do something, we follow through. Then they would understand the nature of America.