From Christopher Hitchens at Slate.
It's Curtains for al-Qaida
What happens when Iraqi "insurgents" take on Zarqawi's thugs?
The best news from Iraq this year would certainly be the long New York Times report of Jan. 12 on the murderous strife between local "insurgents" and al-Qaida infiltrators. This was also among the best news from last year.
For months, coalition soldiers in Iraq had been telling anyone who would care to listen that they had noticed a new phenomenon: heavy fire that they didn't have to duck. On analysis, this turned out to be shooting or shelling apparently "incoming" from one "insurgent position" but actually directed at another one.
( ... ) If all goes even reasonably well, and if a combination of elections and prosperity is enough to draw more mainstream Sunnis into politics and away from Baathist nostalgia, it will have been proved that Bin-Ladenism can be taken on — and openly defeated — in a major Middle Eastern country.
And not just defeated but discredited. Humiliated.
Is there anyone who does not think that this is a historic prize worth having? Worth fighting for, in fact?
More on "Red-on-Red" incidents in Iraq from Bill Roggio at ThreatsWatch.
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