Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Zarqawi took over Iraqi "insurgency"

Washington Post:

The top U.S. military intelligence officer in Iraq said Abu Musab Zarqawi and his foreign and Iraqi associates have essentially commandeered the insurgency, becoming the dominant opposition force and the greatest immediate threat to U.S. objectives in the country.

"I think what you really have here is an insurgency that's been hijacked by a terrorist campaign," Army Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner said in an interview. "In part, by Zarqawi becoming the face of this thing, he has certainly gotten the funding, the media and, frankly, has allowed other folks to work along in his draft."

The remarks underscored a shift in view among senior members of the U.S. military command here since the spring, as violence, especially against civilians, has spiked and as Zarqawi, a radical Sunni Muslim from Jordan, has aggressively promoted himself and his anti-U.S., anti-Shiite campaign. U.S. military leaders say they now see Zarqawi's group of foreign fighters and Iraqi supporters, known as al Qaeda in Iraq, as having supplanted Iraqis loyal to ousted president Saddam Hussein as the insurgency's driving element.

...

"While Zarqawi is the overarching bad guy -- the one everyone loves to hate -- there are a lot of other bad guys operating as well," said Brig. Gen. Karl R. Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which has responsibility for the Baghdad area.

But the Hussein loyalists -- including former Baath Party members, onetime military and intelligence officers and other Sunni Arab associates of the ousted Iraqi leader -- have clearly receded in the U.S. command's view. Labeled "Saddamists" in U.S. military reports, they are now considered less an immediate military danger than a longer-term political concern, given their desire to return to power and their potential to infiltrate and subvert efforts to establish democracy. Once the primary names on the list of most-wanted insurgents in Iraq, they now rank behind those identified with al Qaeda in Iraq.

...

There has been a steady buildup of U.S. and Iraqi forces along the insurgents' two main transit corridors -- one in northwestern Iraq between the border and Mosul, the other in the far western reaches of the Euphrates River valley. U.S. figures show some success in curbing infiltration. Zahner said the number of foreign fighters entering Iraq, which had started to approach 200 a month in June, appeared to drop to 100 a month or fewer by the end of August. More than 315 foreign fighters have been killed since March and nearly 330 detained. Suicide attacks fell about 50 percent from May to August.

...

Another problematic aspect of Zarqawi's operation is its absence of an associated political organization. Hoping to incite sectarian conflict and derail the political process, Zarqawi has declared war on Iraqi Shiites and is urging Sunnis not to participate in next month's vote on a draft constitution or December's parliamentary elections.

"I think right now he's taking an extremely high-risk but, in his view, potentially high-payoff strategy, which is to try to force a civil war with the Shia and portray himself as the defender of the Sunni populace," Zahner said.

Of course that has been Zarqawi's stated strategy going back to the first intercepts of his communications with bin Laden around two years ago. He has stuck with that strategy even though the Shia have not taken the bait and there is no evidence that Sunni's outside of Iraq would join his effort in any greater number if the Shia did go after the Sunni.

Killing or capturing Zarqawi would be a crushing blow for the enemy in Iraq and for al Qaeda as a whole. Right now he is really about the only game they have left and he is in trouble. A defeat for Zarqawi and ultimately the enemy in Iraq would cause bin Laden and Zawaheri to lose face with other Islamist and be characterized as the weak horse in Osama's terms. Very few in this country and even in the military seem to comprehend the significance of destroying Zaraqwi's operation in Iraq. It would be a crushing defeat for al Qaeda and the antiwar left who want to see the US lose so they can prevent future uses of force.