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THE DEATH OF aL-ZARQAWI
What we have in Iraq today -- and have had for
many, many months -- is not a traditional insurgency or even wanton terrorism,
but a large-scale sectarian conflict. Much of the killing in Iraq today isn't
the result of Zarqawi's men, but of Sunni and Shiite militias engaged in a big
fight for control of neighborhoods, towns, cities, and the resources they
control. The vast majority of the 1,400 bodies that showed up in the Baghdad
morgue last month (that's right: 1,400 bodies -- or nearly 50 people each and
every day!) were killed by militias of one kind or another. The guys responsible
for these deaths are not fighting an existing government (which is what an
insurgency implies) but they're fighting to determine who governs Iraq and what
spoils will fall to which group of Iraqis.
(Updated June 9) The Washington Post, a staunch
backer of the military action in Iraq, and of a continued and committed presence
in order to ensure the new government's success therein, took a slightly more
upbeat
tone:
THE KILLING of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of
al-Qaeda in Iraq, is a big gain for the U.S. mission in Iraq and the country's
new government, the more so because it comes at a critical moment. With one
airstrike, U.S. forces deprived Iraq's insurgency -- diverse and fragmented
though it is -- of its sole widely recognized leader, probably its biggest
fundraiser and recruiter, and the organizer of some of the most spectacular and
demoralizing attacks in Iraq, from the bombing of the United Nations
headquarters three years ago to the beheadings of foreign hostages to the
massacres of Shiite worshipers in Najaf and Karbala. Although al-Qaeda in Iraq
makes up only a part of the Iraqi insurgency, it has been the organization most
intent on fomenting sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites; the elimination of
its leader will surely contribute to stanching that civil conflict. Perhaps al-Zarqawi played a larger role in inspiring that sectarian violence than Daalder implies. Perhaps not. Either way, it's still a good step, and one that should have been taken long ago.
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