We suspect that the U.S. had help not only from the Jordanians as always, but oddly from Iran - even if indirect. As the folks over at Strategy Page noted *yesterday*, Zarqawi's increasingly strident outburts against Iran and the Shia marked him for “an accident.” By April Zarqawi surrendered his political duties and was demoted. Al Qaeda and Iranian interests were not served by Zarqawi's calls for more bloodshed against Shia, Iran and civilians. In fact, beginning this Spring, most analyts noted that Zarqawi was actively retarding Al Qaeda objectives in Iraq. SEE: Knock Knock Knockin' at Stop The Spirit Of Zossen

The fact that the U.S. managed to find and kill Zarqawi the day after the new Iraqi government released 2,500 insurgent-sympathizers from prison (they were greeted and given money by leaders of the main Sunni party in parliament), announced a reintegration of Baathists into political society, and appointed a Sunni former Baathist general as defense minister seems to suggest that some sort of deal has been done. SEE: Zarqawi Death Suggests the U.S. Has Brought the Baathists in From the Cold

Nobody believes that Zarqawi's death was a positive step in the so-called "War on Terror".   Zarqawi was a loud mouth show-off whose reckless and irrational behavior finally got him offed by his associates in the Iraq insurgency and Al Qaeda.  I wouldn't be surprised if the $25 million that the US government paid as a reward will be buying guns, ammo and bomb-making material that will kill more of our brave soldiers.

As usual, the US Military is doing exactly what the insurgency wanted it to...get rid of their problem.  It's sort of like Bush getting rid of Saddam for Bin Ladin. Saddam's neo-nazi style national socialism and secular Pan-Nationalism was in conflict with Bin Ladin's religious fundamentalist crusade. So the US getting rid of Saddam was the best thing the US could have done for Bin Ladin's goal of opening up Iraq to Al Qaeda's infiltration and influence.

Whatever we do, we do wrong. We need to let the Iraqis solve this problem by themselves, instead of squandering OUR soldiers'  lives and our treasure in an ill-conceived military adventure to protect an oil supply that we would be better off weaning ourselves away from the first place.