It’s good that we got him. It’s unclear that we can do this sort of thing routinely. General Frank McKenzie, Central Command commander during President Joe Biden’s (D) panicky running away from Afghanistan, had this:

Let’s remember, this is one strike in a year[.]

Indeed. Successfully burning al-Zawahiri in his city apartment makes us one-for-two in over-the-horizon drone strikes into Afghanistan. The other was in the immediate aftermath of that cut-and-run, when we successfully burned a civilian and a bunch of kids with a drone strike on a car.

However, with an n of 2, we can’t tell whether the first, failed, strike is illustrative of the true trend, or the second, successful, strike is illustrative of the true trend—or even whether the true trend is closer to that mediocre 50-ish per cent success rate.

Nor is two strikes a year apart a very useful pace.