Abu al-Zarqawi: A Little Perspective, Please

JUST DESSERTS
The scene after two uninvited guests came to dinner at Abu's house (*)

It took about an hour for my elation over the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be replaced with a familiar sick feeling in my gut.

That was the time that elapsed between the announcement that the leader of the Sunni terrorist insurgency had been mortally wounded in an airstrike and the first of a series of retaliatory bomb blasts in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad that killed 37 people and wounded 85 others.

It took a while longer for these interconnected events to slide into proper perspective:

Do you remember the similar elation that many of us felt when Uday and Qusay, the sons of Saddam Hussein, were killed in Mosul?

That was in July 2003. President Bush and his puppet masters -- Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz -- were flush with "Mission Accomplished" pride and assured us that there were plenty of troops to see the job through to a glorious end. A majority of Americans supported the war, although my own support, which was tepid to begin with, had quickly dissipated because it was obvious the puppet masters had given no thought to an occupation that already was showing signs of being a full-blown disaster.

If the course of events in Iraq since then were to be graphed on a fever chart, the line would plunge unrelentingly downward through the capture of Saddam himself in December 2003, the handover of sovereingty to Iraq in June 2004, the huge turnout for transitional elections in January 2005, the approval of a new constitution in October 2005, and the appointment of a new prime minister in April.

Despite those positive developments, nearly three years after Uday and Qusay were killed support for the war is hovering at slightly more than 30 percent, and a substantial number of the remaining supporters are TFMs. (See the Poll Axed post a bit further down to find out what TFMs are.)

Meanwhile, The Decider has all but said that he's going to leave the whole mess to his successor. Job One is holding onto power, not fashioning an exit strategy.

* * * * *

The collapse of support for George Bush and his fool's mission has nothing to do with its initial stated goal -- to remove a megalomaniac who threatened regional, if not global stability because of his arsenal of WMDs.

The collapse of support has little to do with the carnage -- nearly 2,500 Americans killed and 17,000 wounded, as well as tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties. Americans always have accepted such sacrifices when the cause is just.

No, the collapse of support is because America was betrayed by its leaders. Not once, but repeatedly as the ever changing rationales for the war collapsed under close scrutiny and events on the ground.

Saddam was indeed a very bad man, but he didn't have WMDs.

There were no concrete connections between Saddam and the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. Al-Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda posse were Johnnies Come Lately. While his death is huge, he was but one of several leaders of several insurgent groups and actually was at odds with the Al Qaeda leadership because of his indisciminate killing of fellow Muslims. News media caricatures of al-Zarqawi made him more important than he really was, and meanwhile the Islamic jihad marches on in Iraq and elsewhere.

There were far fewer troops, body armor and other vital resources necessary to carry out the mission. American forces are still stretched so thin three years on that even the modest goal of reducing troop levels from 130,000 to 100,000 by year's end -- something that Republican congressmen desperately wanted to be able to assure voters would happen as mid-term elections approach -- will not be met. In fact, a 3,500-troop brigade was recently rushed from Kuwait to chaotic Anbar Province and another brigade is on standby in Germany.

Yes, bringing democracy to Iraq was a good idea in principle, but not at point of gun, and certainly not when it would embolden al-Zaqawi and other sectarian madmen to prey on their own people.

I say a prayer of thanks that the "Z-Man," as the troops called al-Zarqawi, is now consorting with those 72 virgins in Islamic heaven.

The U.S. military can be happy for a rare battlefield victory. The family of Michael Berg, the American civilian whom al-Zarqawi infamously beheaded on videotape, can be happy. The governments in Washington and Baghdad can be happy that the most wanted man in Iraq has been eliminated. And everyone can be happy that it apparently was someone in al-Zarqawi's own inner circle who betrayed him.

Some commentators who are more prescient and less jaundiced than I am are saying that the next six months will be "crucial." I can only say this about that:

The six months following each of the aforementioned positive developments -- from the capture of Saddam through to approval of a new constitution -- also were crucial, but Iraq descended further into carnage and chaos.

We'll just have to wait and see and hope for the best.

All I know is that sick feeling in my gut is not going to go away anytime soon.

(*) ABOUT THOSE UNINVITED GUESTS

The first of al-Zarqawi's unexpected guests was a laser-guided Paveway GBU-12. It was followed by a GBU-38 strapped to a satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition. A second bomb was dropped because it was believe the house where he was staying was a reinforced safe house.

Neither guest knocked before entering the house. Both arrived courtesy of a single F-16C fighter jet that was part of a round-the-clock air surveillance effort focused on the terrorist leader. Two women and a young girl were among the six people reported killed.

Let's hope they enjoyed their last supper.