Ding Dong Zarqawi's Dead

---by Micheal

Some of the press reports sound almost as giddy as the chorus of Munchkins singing over the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, the removal of Zarqawi from the hostile soup of Iraq is unquestionably a good thing. We need to avoid undue euphoria, however. It will only turn on us.

The death of Zarqawi is good for Iraq because he was interjecting a wider, and very savage, element of jihadism into an already tense national-birth situation. Many Iraqis would rather that American forces were not in their country. They would rather run things themselves. A fellow like Zarqawi didn't want things to stabilize in Iraq. He and his followers wanted massive unrest and chaos for their own ideological agenda. They were using Iraqis. It seems the Iraqis finally reallized they were being used, and whispered where a few bombs might do a world of good.

What we, in the US, need to avoid, is the undue optimism that the death of Zarqawi has removed the heart of the insurgency. I think we Americans tend to overgeneralize our villains. We thought that removing the Kaiser would "end all wars" back in 1918. It didn't. We thought defeating Hitler would end facist oppression. It didn't. We were elated that the fall of the Soviet empire would herald an era of peace. It didn't.

Terrorism didn't die with Zarqawi. Nationalist resistance to US forces won't cease. Radicals who believe suicide bombs are the way to do things, are still with us (such as in Toronto). If we talk ourselves into thinking the death of Zarqawi will make all things good again, we'll just be in for yet another huge disappointment. After all, those singing Munchkins were pretty quickly reminded that the Wicked Witch of the West had a very angry sister.