Zarqawi Death Will Strengthen New Government

Chris Matthews had a good interview just now on Hardball with Ambassador James Jeffreys, Condi Rice's Special Advisor on Iraq, about future prospects for the insurgency now that Zarqawi is burning in hell.

Jeffreys had a few interesting points. The main change that Zarqawi's death will effect lies in the new government's attempts to get insurgent leaders to compromise in order to co-opt them into the new political system. Jeffreys said that Zarqawi was the main obstacle to get this process moving forward, as his group quickly found out if a tribal chief or insurgent commander was moving toward conciliation, Zarqawi would kill them quickly and ruthlessly.

Zarqawi, who represented only a tiny fraction of the insurgency and whose group was largely comprised of foreign members, was first and foremost a dreaded enforcer of discipline on the insurgent margins. Jeffreys noted that many of his lieutenants have been killed in past operations in Fallujah and Ramadi, but that Zarqawi would replace them with similarly efficient killers. Mathews said, "like a snake, it would grow a new part," and asked Jeffreys if Zarqawi would be replaced. Jeffreys simply responded, "you can't replace a head of a snake."

Jeffreys noted Zarqawi was born ina Palestinian camp in Zarqa [which I have visited and which has the only oil refinery in Jordan]; elsewhere I had read he was of Bedu origin of the Beni Hassan tribel

Jeffreys also noted that Zarqawi had been with the Al-Ansar Al-Qaeda group in the mountains of Kurdistan near the Iranian border for a while, and might have had Iranian connections. Much more intriguing was a record found of Zarqawi's stay in a Baghdad hospital before the American invasion. One did not check into a Baghdad hospital without being allowed to do so by Saddam's brutal secret police. And what was he doing in Baghdad besides staying in a hospital?

Anathema to liberals, but this implies some sort of collusion between Saddam's people and Al-Qaeda before the American invasion.

Yep, although the scale of the cooperation might have been miniscule, Bush may have been right about an Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection.