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A fate he deserved

Zarqawi's death overshadows more incremental events that give promise.

The world is a better place without Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in it. The Sunni terrorist and his henchmen introduced the grotesque butchery of beheadings and suicide bombings to the war in Iraq. As the reaction in the region revealed, even many of the anti-American Sunnis whom Zarqawi claimed to represent had become appalled by the indiscriminate sadism of his tactics in Iraq and Jordan.

As recently as a year ago, eliminating the Zarqawi cancer might have marked a strategic turning point in Iraq. But Zarqawi succeeded in fomenting a broader sectarian war, and he leaves behind what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday called "a network of networks'' of terror in Iraq and elsewhere that can survive even the loss of a leader who encouraged a cult of personality. The 24 hours following the deaths of Zarqawi and several of his lieutenants brought an unabated spree of car bombings, kidnappings, random murders and other carnage in and around Baghdad.

Still, Zarqawi's death represents the most spectacular success for beleaguered coalition forces since the capture of Saddam Hussein. U.S., Iraqi and Jordanian intelligence operatives reportedly cooperated in the planning that led to the assault on Zarqawi's hideout near Baqouba. Building reliable partnerships with Iraq's security forces and supportive neighboring governments is a prerequisite for an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

To that end, a couple of less dramatic events this week may hold even more promise:

After weeks of stalemate, new Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki finally completed his Cabinet with the appointments of Jawad Kadem al-Bolani, a Shiite, as interior minister, and Gen. Abdul Qadr Mohammed Jassim, a Sunni, as defense minister. Earlier in the week, Maliki set in motion the release of thousands of prisoners, mostly Sunni, who were found to have been detained without just cause since the war began.

These efforts at reconciliation are only tentative steps toward building a more representative and self-sustaining Iraqi government. The divisions between Sunni and Shiite factions (and among competing Shiite blocs) remain acute, particularly within Iraq's police and security forces. Still, Maliki already has made more progress in that direction than his inept predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, managed in the previous year.

The rebuilding of Iraq will depend on incremental progress more than spectacular headlines. In the early, optimistic days of this war, White House officials overreacted to the capture of Hussein, the deaths of his sons and the rounding up of most of the faces on that notorious deck of Baathist cards. Meanwhile, the violence and chaos in Iraq continued to spread.

In public, the president and other administration officials reacted with more reserve to Zarqawi's death. They and our forces in Iraq are entitled to celebrate more fully in private this rare day of good news in a miserable war. The families and friends of Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and the thousands of other victims of Zarqawi's atrocities also are entitled to take some grim satisfaction from knowing that this mass murderer has met the fate he deserved.

[Last modified June 9, 2006, 06:11:56]