If I were in the Bush Administration, I’d be jumping all over this al-Qaeda memo lamenting the environment for terrorism in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the apparent al-Qaeda liaison to the Iraqi resistance writes in some depth about the situation in Iraq and why the jihadis are losing against the US.
The document was made available to The New York Times on Sunday, with an accompanying translation made by the military. A reporter was allowed to see the Arabic and English versions and to write down large parts of the translation.
The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving. It even laments Iraq’s lack of mountains in which to take refuge.
This disproves the idea that the Iraqi people are supporting the insurgency – quite the opposite, al-Zarqawi deliberately wants to provoke a deadly religious war in the country between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims that would kill thousands. The biggest losers in such a struggle would be the Iraqi people, many of whom are sick of the constant violence that threatens to tear their country apart. Many Iraqis understand that the only way to end the violence is to let the CPA finish the job.
Now is the time to go on the offensive and break the back of the insurgency in Iraq. If we can get a memo from al-Zarqawi we’re clearly getting close. They have nowhere to go and face a hostile population. Even a few captures can dramatically improve the security situation in Iraq, a move that is increasingly important for bringing peace to the war-torn country.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds at InstaPundit finds an example of media spin on this story. Either some copyeditor was asleep at their desk, or CNN is spinning the story. Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on them.
Over 100 killed in bombings in less than 48 hours. Out of curiosity, if this is what it looks like when we’re winning, what the fuck does it look like when we’re losing in Iraq? More importantly, if these casualties are a winning scenario, don’t you think that should have been mentioned during the run-up to this cakewalk?
The fact is that these events, horrible as they are, do show the desperation of the insurgents in Iraq. If you’re trying to capture the hearts and minds of a country, killing people at random isn’t the way to do it. As Zarqawi said, al-Qaeda is having trouble recruiting in Iraq, and the noose is tightening around them. While the destructiveness of these attacks is great, the terrorists are running out of time and resources.
Even though there have been many attacks against Iraqis in the last few months, they still don’t compare to the kind of widespread killing that occurred under the Hussein regime. The human costs of doing nothing are still dramatically greater than the costs of removing Hussein’s regime and the terrorists.