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Obama got bin Laden, Trump got Baghdadi and Qassem Suleimani, now Biden has got al-Qurayshi. Big scalps in the war on terror. Each killing hailed as a turning point. And then what?
Bin Laden's death did not spell the end of al Qaeda. Iran is just as threatening without the mastermind General Suleimani. Islamic State survived the death of its leader Baghdadi. It will survive the killing of al-Qurayshi.
Islamic State grew out of the brutal Al Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. He was killed too.
Zarqawi was a disciple of bin Laden before breaking away. Bin Laden was a follower of Abdullah Azzam, a jihadist imam who was assassinated in Pakistan in 1989.
The point is with each death a new leader steps up. Each iteration of militant Islamist groups becomes more brutal than the last.
The death of al-Qurayshi is not the answer
Bin Laden himself said it: we love death like you love life.
How do you defeat an enemy that welcomes death? Apparently al-Qurayshi killed himself and his family rather than be taken by US forces.
The West knows by now that it can't kill itself to victory against terrorism. Yes, Islamic State is less a force than it was several years ago when it controlled swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, but it is still potent.
Counterintuitively losing its territory may be a virtue. The group does not have to defend itself but can attack in different forms in different parts of the world.
We know it has transplanted to Afghanistan. It has joined with disaffected Taliban members to form Islamic State Khorasan.
IS, as well as Al Qaeda, are active in the West African Sahel region. With weak governance, militant groups offer themselves as alternative governments.
Killing al-Quarayshi will not stop this spread of Islamist militancy.
What does the strategy tell us a lot about the US?
We know what this moment tells us about ISIS. But what does it tell us about the US?
Weak American presidents like to hail these types of killings as a sign of US strength. We heard the same from Obama and Trump now Biden tells us this is a warning that terrorists will be hunted down wherever they are.
But there are bigger threats to the US and the world than IS or Al Qaeda. Right now Vladimir Putin has more than a 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine.
Xi Jinping is hosting the Winter Olympic Games while still holding the threat of invasion over Taiwan.
Putin and Xi are calling out American power. They are the true test of Biden's strength and resolve.
And on that score the US hasn't had much success lately.
Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, he launched a war in Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea. In each case he stared down the US which did little in retaliation.
Barack Obama's weakness in the Middle East, particularly Syria, opened the door for Putin to embed Russian power and prop up the Assad regime.
Killing IS leaders in its own way does Putin and Assad a favour.
China has claimed and militarised the disputed islands of the South China Sea and has suffered no real consequences.
Xi Jinping says the West is in decline and the East is rising.
Killing al-Qurayshi gives Joe Biden a day to look tough and decisive. But tomorrow the questions will still remain: can he confront the challenge of this time, the rise of powerful authoritarian regimes?
His Presidency thus far is marked by the pull out of Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban. Little wonder allies question America's power and rivals test America's will.
Killing the latest IS leader makes the world for a moment perhaps a little safer. Few will mourn al-Qurayshi. But the war on terrorism is not over. And there is the risk of even greater war in the horizon.
Joe Biden faces even more threatening foes and they won't be quaking because America was able to kill the latest in a long line of Islamist militants.
Stan Grant is the ABC's international affairs analyst and presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel.