At stake in Iraq just now, is whether Jihadi terrorism and guerrilla action can be defeated. Iranian nuclear weapons are the bigger immediate issue, but Iraq offers the definitive test of wills. Do the U.S. and allies have the stomach to see the Jihadis off, even if this requires killing every one of them in a postmodern Iwo Jima? The whole Muslim world is waiting to see who wins this battle of wills, and I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the future course of Islam may be decided in light of it.
The news from Iraq is good, though we must look through carnage to see it. The audiotape which appeared yesterday, from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the "field marshal" of the Iraqi Jihad, tells the story. He is apoplectic, indeed apocalyptic, about the failure of the whole Arab world to rise to his defence. He gives a very frank account of being "let down in the darkest circumstances", while "hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered by the infidels". He thinks Iraq and Afghanistan have now been "handed over to the Jews and Crusaders". Verily: keep firing.
In Fallujah, the U.S. and allies uncovered the command centres of the Sunni Jihadi underground. Despite the best efforts of Zarqawi's henchmen to remove irreplaceable assets from Fallujah before the storm, including their leader, the allies are now sifting a trove of intelligence finds in the city. |