They could handle it and beat them at several key points (1 ghz barrier, first to ship x86-64, first to integrate memory controller, not to mention eating the p4 for lunch performance wise), but Intel cheated and our justice department let them. The US refused to do anything, and the EU went at it a decade after the facts.

I agree with your conclusion that fighting head on right now would not be smart when they have nvidia on one side and arm on the other. But not with your assertion that "AMD failed to defeat Intel products in the market" the last time.