Iraq's New Gov't: Zarqawi Loses Again

From IBD:
Posted 5/22/2006

War On Terror: The successful formation of a unity government in Iraq provoked a big "yes, but" in the mainstream media, but it is terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's worst nightmare.

The classic "yes, but" story appeared above the fold in Monday's Los Angeles Times, which seldom has an encouraging word about our effort to take the fight in the war on terrorism to the terrorists or to transform a region that's known only tyranny and oppression by introducing freedom and democracy.

"Iraqis Lack Faith in Leaders" was the Times' main headline, with the deck: "Weary from years of war and uncertainty, they see little hope government will ease nation's woes."

That said it all, at least as far as the Times was concerned. We'd put it a little differently. In fact, what we witnessed in Iraq was quite remarkable:

Just three years after the toppling of mass murderer and brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, here were Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds — some dressed in business suits, some in traditional Arab robes, but all members of an Iraqi parliament elected on Dec. 15 — filing into the parliament chamber to approve a permanent democratic government of a free Iraq.

As Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and others in the 40-member Cabinet took the oath of office, after being confirmed one by one, it was a reminder that if anyone needs an exit strategy, it is Zarqawi and his terrorist supporters.

Indeed, as we have noted, documents captured by U.S. forces in an April 16 raid in the Yusufiyah area 12 miles south of Baghdad, show that al-Qaida in Iraq knows what the Washington press corps and the Democratic leadership do not: The insurgents are losing.

The documents authored by an al-Qaida operative are a vindication of the Bush administration's war policy and an indictment of those who have called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation for allegedly mismanaging the war.

The operative wrote:
"The Americans and the (Iraqi) government were able to absorb our painful blows, sustain them, compensate their losses with new replacements and follow strategic plans which allowed them in the past few years to take control of Baghdad as well as other areas one after another."

Zarqawi, like North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, eagerly watches the attacks on Bush and his policies. He knows he can't win on the ground. But he also knows, as in Vietnam, he might win in the American media and the Democratic caucus.

The jihadist goal is clear — to create as much bloodshed and violence as possible to repeat the Vietnam experience, to prove to the Islamic world that America doesn't have the stomach for this war and will cut and run. The terrorists hope to accomplish this goal by using graphic footage of their desperate barbarism to turn the U.S. media and the American people against the war by creating the false impression we are losing.

In an interview on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor" last week, Rumsfeld was asked how he would answer those who watch the car bombs and the sectarian violence and say the war is unwinnable.

Rumsfeld said he understood "how some people could feel that way, given what they hear on television and what they see in the press." But, he added, "if you put yourself in the position of Zarqawi and the terrorists and the insurgents, they tried to stop the election last year in January, and they failed. They tried to stop the election Dec. 15 and they failed."

He also noted that Zarqawi and the insurgents were trying to stop the formation of a new government and would fail again. Well, they did fail, again, as the new permanent government in Iraq — the government that resulted from December's elections in which 12 million Iraqis participated — was sworn in.

There's much for the new government to do. Iraq's new prime minister pledged on Sunday to use "maximum force" if necessary to end the brutal insurgent and sectarian violence wracking the country from those fearing democracy and those trying to settle old scores.

Still, as Rumsfeld stressed, "It's always good to put yourself in the other fella's position. They know they can't win that war over there. The only place they can win it is in Washington, D.C."