The Hindsight Factor

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As I said before, Zarqawi's death poses a serious security risk to what little containment there was to his cell in Iraq. Despite whatever website claims to be the authority on his replacement, the fact is that a power struggle now appears to be in full swing over who will lead the beast:

Even al Qaeda’s adherents in Iraq are stumped by the identity of their new commander – doubly confused by the bulletins on similar Web sites which all name different successors.

Our Iraq sources list them as: Abdul Rahman al Iraqi, Zarqawi’s deputy; Rashid Baghdadi, an Iraqi believed to head the shura council; Abu Asil, an ex-colonel in Saddam Hussein’s general intelligence service.

This is a situation that really ought to be taken seriously. The single biggest danger of Al-Qu'eda is its fragmentation. The Bushies' desire to classify this organization in a pre-9-11 contruction of a centralized army is understandable given that this is a much more familiar and contained enemy with which to engage. However, this is simply not the case and I would say four or five smaller enemiesm, each trying to outdo the other, poses a far greater risk than a single large cell ever could.

This struggle will never be secure until we start focusing on the ideology and conditions leading to terrorism rather than their armed expression.