I'm somewhat tentative about referring to Musab al Zarqawi as al Qaeda's Jeb Stuart, because I don't want to be misunderstood as suggesting that the two are comparable in every respect. The two commanders were alike in the sense that they were important second fiddles, but there's no comparison in terms of their ethics and morality. The difference is quite uncomplicated: Jeb Stuart, while arguably a defender of slavery, never blew up or sawed the heads off innocent noncombatants. And his military successes can rightly be called that, rather than the sort of piddling incessant vandalism that has undermined as much as advanced Zarqawi's co-called "cause." But the two are alike, in spite of what "terrorism expert", Richard Clarke, says, because they were both irreplaceable in the hierarchy of their respective armies, and their deaths will be seen to have marked a turning point.
"Unfortunately for the loved ones of troops over in Iraq, this is not going to mean a big difference."and advanced the opinion that neither Zarqawi nor al Qaeda were very instrumental to the Iraq insurgency:
Clarke said the modest size of the terrorist leader's organization and his minimal involvement in the daily bomb attacks on coalition forces made that claim unlikely....But according to a different, and arguably less partisan, terrorism expert, Rohan Gunaratna [h/t: Security Watchtower by way of PJ Media]:"Al Qaeda in Iraq was probably the smallest of the 14 major insurgent groups."
”Zarqawi didn’t have a number two. I can’t think of any single person who would succeed Zarqawi…In terms of effectiveness, there was no single leader in Iraq who could match his ruthlessness and his determination … it’s the most significant victory in the fight against terrorism. He was certainly the most active terrorist in Iraq. More than that, he was using Iraq to mount operations in the neighborhood, for instance the Jordan attacks (last year) were by his group…He had an extensive network overseas, in Europe and in the Middle East, and he was expanding this network.”History will tell us whether the comparison is apt, but perhaps ABC News ought to go shopping for a new talking head, just in case?
Update: A commenter on TigerHawk thinks the more apt comparison might be with Stonewall Jackson. I considered that, and he might well be right. I was biased against that by the fact that Stonewall was killed by friendly fire, but the incident was much earlier than the death of Jeb Stuart, and I think these are still early days in the Long War on Terror.
I'm also sympathetic to Mark's objections on WoC (most of which I noted in the post), but think this is still a very significant event.
P.S.: I tried posting this as a comment to my own post, but was denied for "questionable content." It seems that "blogspot.com" is on the questionable content list. Would that be kind of a problem? Perhaps someone more technically proficient than myself might fix that?
shameless prediction: al-Qaeda Iraq will not reformulate. That leaves a lot of Baathist insurgents and shiite death squads to send the whole thing into civil war, but I think this was uniquely Zarqawi's organiation and it will be difficult to put back the pieces under a cloud of suspicion that someone ratted. I think the eye turns southward towards the horn of Africa.
My thoughts here on my newly-resurrected (and reinvented as an extended-comments vehicle)blog. (Replace the *'s in the URL with o's.)
To summarize, this is definitely a big victory, but may have more impact on the homefront than in Iraq itself.
"shameless prediction: al-Qaeda Iraq will not reformulate. That leaves a lot of Baathist insurgents and shiite death squads to send the whole thing into civil war, but I think this was uniquely Zarqawi's organiation and it will be difficult to put back the pieces under a cloud of suspicion that someone ratted. I think the eye turns southward towards the horn of Africa."
I'd second that prediction.
I'd also say that I think Richard Clarke is about 80% right, however ill-placed his cynicism is in the face of a small but important victory. Al-Queda in Iraq was a small organization, although I would like to see him substantiate that it was '14th' amongst the insurgent/terrorist organizations in Iraq. Where in the heck does he get an accurate count of the manpower available to an insurgency?
However, its size doesn't tell the full story. While it wasn't that big, it was probably in the top 5 among organizations in terms of the violence it produced. And no organization was so wanton in its violence and no organization is so responcible for esclating the degree of violence. It was always Al-Queda in Iraq that was most responcible for stepping up attacks on civilian targets, and providing the strategic vision and expertice for the native Islamist organizations. Al-Zarqawi was influential in this fashion even among native insurgencies that despised him as a foreigner. Either through direct action or through influencing the intellectual space of the insurgency, he is primarily responcible for the big jump in Iraqi civilian deaths in the past four to five months.
Amongst the random noise of war, we are unlikely to see an immediate and easily identifiable drop in the casualty rate amongst US troops and Iraqi civilians, but buried under the noise I think its going to be there and reveal itself in the trend for the next few months. This is going to save at the least a couple dozen American lives and a couple hundred Iraqi lives. It's also a major step toward getting the native insurgency organizations to step down operations, which would save a good deal many more and give a chance for the economic recovery to begin to be felt in the Sunni heartland.
I dont like the comparison at all. JEB Stuart provided invaluable utility to the ANV, Zarqawi did nothing to advance his cause and in fact probably did a better job of turning Iraqis and Muslims in general against Al Qaeda than we could have hoped for. Maybe you could argue he spurred Iraq to the brink of civil war, but in the long term that just hands Iraq to the hated Shiia and increases Irans strength. Had Zarqawi concentrated on chasing the US out of Iraq he would have been a much more effective enemy. As it is I dont think they are shedding many tears at AQ HQ.
#4 Mark,
While I agree re: quality of generalship the thing to remember i.e. he was the best they had in Iraq and like Stuart a symbol.
From what I can see the Iraqis seem quite pleased (mostly).
#4 Mark,
He didn't concentrate on the Americans because such attacks degraded his organization faster than he could replace it.
That may be the case but attacking civilians for no apparent reason proved far more destructive to his orgranization ultimately. It may have gotten him killed.
JEB Stuarts most important work didnt take place on the famous battlefields. It was his careful and precise observation of enemy numbers and movement (he is generally considered the best intelligence asset of the war on either side) as well as his ability to screen the movements of his own army from enemy eyes.
Zarqawi in many ways was the opposite. Imagine if JEB decided to charge the Union positions every time he found them, and when that became to costly he used his troops to go behind the lines and string up innocent civilians. Clearly his understanding of his job would be faulty to the point that the South would be better off without him altogether. That is Zarqawi's legacy. He hurt his cause more than he helped, and we have reaped the benefits. Had he been a real commander he could have done us irreprably more harm be keeping a lower profile and choosing his spots to hurt us. Lets pray his successor is just as stupid and egomaniacal.
im not sure I agree that Zarqs strategy was losing. As far is making him personally popular it was no winner. But it was quite effective in destroying trust between sunnis and shiites, strengthening al Sadr, alienating IRaqis from each other, and making Iraqi unity and democracy difficult. If his goal was not to be the premier of Iraq, but to stop US from succeeding in Iraq, than his strategy of attacking Shia civilians was quite clever. and if that strategyt is weakened, hope for Iraq will grow
Actually, I think we will see a definite drop in the casualty rate in the next 2 weeks or so as AQ groups reform. After that I predict a month or two of random killings and murders, actually increasing in violence. After that -- and thats the key -- I think the odds are at lest 50% that we will see a drop if Iraqi Sunni groups can be induced to leave the insurgency. Maybe in a year, we will have a Iraq that is still violent and brutal at times, but is still a vast improvement from today.
I don't see the comparison with Jeb Stuart so much. If we're talking about a "turning point" death and you want to make comparisons between Iraq and the U.S. Civil War, you'd be better served by comparing Zarqawi to Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. When he was killed, Lee lost his right-hand man and the Confederacy lost it's best strategist. His death was much bemoaned by General Lee and arguably marked the true turning point in the war.
Whether Zarqawi's death is as significant remains to be seen. We can only hope.
Yes, I was going to make Kehaar's point. I think JEB Stuart lived out the war. Stonewall Jackson was Lee's dashing (and kind of wacko) lieutenant whose death at Chancellorsville (by friendly fire, IIRC) perhaps marked a military turning point. Although Grant's assumption of command over the Army of the Potomac was probably more decisive in the long run, I suspect.
Joel at Far Outliers
JEB Stuart died in 1864 at the battle of Yellow Station. I think Stuart was closer to Zarqawi than Stonewall Jackson. Stuart was flamboyant, he wanted to be seen as a man of action and was prone to do things which drove his superiors crazy. Stonewall was much more reserved, eccentric(to be nice), and not as likely to do things which drove his superior crazy. I think Zarqawi liked to seen as a man of action, and he drove his superiors in al-Qaeda crazy by focusing on Shia Iraqis instead of Americans.
But most important is that the operational tempo of bombings will slow and more people will live out the year than otherwise. I've been selling this to Canadian leftists as an unconditionally good thing, and on the survival point alone, even pacifists have learned to love the bomb.
Or as they are saying in th Army: "Happy Zarqawi Death Day!
A fine thing he's gone. With weeks to prepare, too bad he couldn't have been captured and debriefed.
I think the main effect will be a temporary morale improvement in the US. There might be a temporary morale improvement in iraq too, though.
But most important is that the operational tempo of bombings will slow and more people will live out the year than otherwise.
Why would you expect the operational tempo of bombings to slow when these bombings were successful? Two 500 pound bombs got great results this time.
I wasn't specific, the AQ bombings will slow down.
AQ, if it gets up again in a unifed front, if it ever was unified, will have to have a Ennio Moriconne themed shootout to figure who will succeed. Let's bow our heads for the Benediction of Kissenger: may they all lose.
That little drekilichen Giftknapf (filthy poisondwarf) is dead! Ha!
Just one little correction: Zarqawi didn't have "superiors in al-Qaeda". He chose the name "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" for his own little band of murderers to capitalize on the infamy of bin Laden's organization. He and his followers were not related to the al-Qaeda of 9/11 (though their interests may have begun to converge more recently).
"Just one little correction: Zarqawi didn't have "superiors in al-Qaeda". He chose the name "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" for his own little band of murderers to capitalize on the infamy of bin Laden's organization. He and his followers were not related to the al-Qaeda of 9/11 (though their interests may have begun to converge more recently)."
Thats entirely disengenous. Zarqawi was injured in a US airstrike in Afghanistan during the period Al Qaeda essentially ran a shadow government there. To think he wasnt there in some relationship with AQ is unlikely. He has also been undeniably exchanging reports with OBL
"Zarqawi, a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden, was a high-ranking member of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, and since October 2004 had referred to his own organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War Group, an insurgent network operating in Iraq, as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq". On October 21, 2004, Zarqawi officially announced his allegiance to Al Qaeda; on December 27, 2004, Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape of bin Laden calling Zarqawi "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq" and asked "all our organization brethren to listen to him and obey him in his good deeds."
wiki
I think a better analogy is the KKK: an ethnic supremacist organization dedicated to using terrorism to prevent other ethnicities from exercising their democratic rights or becoming educated, and keeping those others in a state as close to slavery as possible.
"Zarqawi was injured in a US airstrike in Afghanistan during the period Al Qaeda essentially ran a shadow government there."
Was he ? I've heard contradictory reports on that.
#7 Mark,
Concur. I think this points out the superiority of the American strategy.
Given his operational capability the Zman had no good choices. This is evidence of superior American generalship and troops.
A better comparison for zarqawi would actually be, zarcarwi was to obl as Sep Detrich was to Hitler! Think about it ,however as a recently retired 20 year vet,I CAN TELL YOU THAT NONE OF THE ABOVE COULD MAKE CPL IN TODAYS AMERICAN ARMY.