President Obama wisely avoided the phrase “mission accomplished” in his major speech last week about the “war on terror,” but columnists aren’t obliged to be so circumspect: It is time to declare victory and get on with our lives. 
 
 Obama could never say this, of course, because there will surely be future terrorist attacks that kill Americans both at home and abroad. But he came close when he said that “the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11” — in other words, before we rashly declared war on a tactic rather than an enemy. 
 
 Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section. View Archive 
 
 “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us,” Obama said. “We must make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. And that begins with understanding the current threat that we face.” 
 
 Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, the organization that flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is decimated and on the run. But franchise groups, some bearing the al-Qaeda name, in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Mali pose a lesser but real threat to the United States. Meanwhile, the Arab Spring empowered — and armed to the teeth — ad hoc groups across the region that share al-Qaeda’s zeal for Islamist jihad and can mount deadly local attacks, such as in Benghazi. And individuals here in the “homeland” — still, to my ear, an off-key word — can commit mayhem in the name of jihad, as we saw in Boston. 
 
 “Lethal yet less capable al-Qaeda affiliates. Threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad. Homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism,” the president told his audience at the National Defense University in Washington. “If dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.” 
 
 Ann Telnaes animation: The never-ending “war on terror.” (Ann Telnaes/The Washington Post) 
 
 This attempt to enumerate real and potential enemies was the heart of Obama’s speech, in my view. A “war on terror” must endure forever because, as Obama said, “we will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society.” A war against identifiable foes, however, can be won — and, for the most part, has been. 
 
 He could have gone further in talking about the nature of the threat from “radicalized” individuals. What distinguishes their crimes from other senseless acts of violence? Put another way, what would the reaction have been if Adam Lanza, as he murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, had yelled, “Allahu akbar”? 
 
 Was there really any meaningful connection between the bloody Boston rampage and international jihadism? It seems likely that an al-Qaeda Web site taught the Boston bombers how to build their pressure-cooker bombs, but what about the alienation they obviously felt? What about their mental health? Was jihad anything more than a label, an affinity-group logo like the Red Sox insignia on a baseball cap? 
 
 Obama has been saying for years that he intends to leave behind a sound legal and administrative framework for counterterrorism operations against groups or individuals who pose a threat. The long, dense, well-written speech he delivered Thursday was a start. Rather, it was a restart; upon taking office in 2009 he immediately banned torture and secret detentions overseas, but he let pass his best opportunity to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. 
 
 He announced that he will resume transferring some prisoners, especially to Yemen. But despite Obama’s impassioned plea, I think it is highly unlikely that Congress will remove the many restrictions that keep the president from just shutting the place down. Some detainees may still be there when Obama leaves office in 2017. 
 
 The president gave the clearest explanation to date of how he decides to use pilotless drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists overseas. As I’ve written before, the age of drone warfare is here whether we like it or not. I really don’t like it at all. I realize, however, that any president faced with a choice between risking American lives and dispatching a few robots is going to send in the drones. 
 
 But armed drones are weapons of assassination, not of war as we know it. They are designed to snuff out a specific human being and those unfortunately nearby, halfway around the globe, like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. No amount of judicial or congressional oversight should make us feel great about that. 
 
 Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A. ||||| “You’re stupid,” is not something even his most severe critics usually say to President Barack Obama. But on Friday morning I picked up the Wall Street Journal and learned that the president had given a speech about the war on terror saying, “This war, like all wars, must end.” 
 
 That story was at the top of the front page. Immediately below was a photograph of flowers being laid at a makeshift memorial near the Woolwich Royal Arsenal where machine gunner Lee Rigby was hacked to death by terrorists. 
 
 This war, like all wars, must end when someone wins it. The president—speaking at the National Defense University, of all places—said, “the core of al Qaeda . . . is on the path to defeat.” And so it may be. But meanwhile, the core of al Qaeda, its aims and its beliefs, is also on the path to Boston and London and any number of other places. 
 
 On page 7 of Friday’s Journal was the headline, “Suicide Bombings in Niger Linked to Mali Islamist Group.” On page 9 was a report of terrorist Hezbollah militias aiding the terrorist Assad regime in attacking the rebel-held Syrian city of Qusayr where the rebels themselves are allied with yet more Islamic terrorists. And on pages 4 and 8 were more bad tidings from that perpetrator, abettor, and friend of terrorism, Iran. Iranian fundamentalists, in the chokehold they have on the country’s political system, are improving their grip. And, “according to current and former U.S. officials,” Iran has “escalated a campaign of cyberassaults against U.S. corporations. . . . The hackers were able to gain access to control-system software that could allow them to manipulate oil or gas pipelines.” 
 
 All that on a slow news day.
– In his much-celebrated speech last week, President Obama said that "this war, like all wars, must end," and that al-Qaeda is "on the path to defeat." Well, PJ O'Rourke at the Weekly Standard has a word for that kind of thinking: "Stupid." His take? "This war, like all wars, must end when someone wins it," he quips, and al-Qaeda is "on the path to Boston and London and any number of other places." But Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post doesn't think those apparent lone-wolf attacks justify ongoing war. Yes, we'll probably suffer more attacks from Islamic radicals, but "what distinguishes their crimes from other senseless acts of violence? Put another way, what would the reaction have been if Adam Lanza … had yelled, 'Allahu akbar'?" Al-Qaeda is in shambles, and while Obama was wise enough not to declare victory, "columnists aren't obliged to be so circumspect: it is time to declare victory and get on with our lives." Click for O'Rourke's full column, or for Robinson's.