Zarqawi's psychotic extremism will be it's own undoing in Iraq. As he continues to over-step and to over-reach, he will continue to alienate Iraqis which will culminate in his being turned in eventually, and then to the eventual defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Are best hope is that Iraq becomes more dangerous for Al Qaeda to operate than it is for Americans and that Al Qaeda will lose freedom of movement within Iraq making it an all but impossible situation there forcing them to eventually have to quit Iraq altogether. At that point hopefully we can negotiate with the Sunni insurgents to bring a peaceful solution to Iraq. If we can play these cards right of this increasing rift between Sunnis and Al Qaeda, we may see the seeds of victory in Iraq finally germinate. Fortunately we have a smart ambassador there who knows how to reach out to the Sunnis and to make this happen.
This is important because it shows the Sunnis instinctively thought of the situation in two terms (either be part of the politcal process, or ally with Al Qaeda and fight for who knows how long). There wasn't the ONE option of fighting the U.S. troops no matter what.
Whether or not this can be sustained after we leave Iraq is another question. I'm still not convinced this won't blow up into civil war a few years after we leave.
Time is a little late to the party on this one, and still managed to find a Democrat to disparage the whole thing, but it's getting too obvious to ignore. The locals want to end the occupation. The U.S. wants to end the occupation. Zarqawi wants to kill everyone in sight. It's kind of obvious who's the odd man out.
This tidbit is interesting:
Local insurgents responded by hunting down al-Qaeda's chief for southern Baghdad and killing him and four Syrian fighters.
Syrian "fighters" = Syrian intelligence. We've been fighting the intelligence arms of several neighboring states including Iran for some time now in this thing and it's one reason the insurgency has proven so intractable, at least up to now. They're professional, well-funded, and well-supplied, but they're also as much foreigners as the U.S. troops and they're killing a lot more Iraqis than we are. A stable Iraq is not in their interests, and now it is in the interest of the Sunni clans. That's what's changed.