While noting that none of us is in position to really judge the intelligence credibility of this memo (which would require intimate familiarity with Zarqawi, Al Qaeda methods, the Kurdish sources, etc.), I must say that Ackerman's doubts seem weakly reasoned to me. Zarqawi is appealing for help from guys whom he is affiliated with, but who don't work for him. We know that Al Qaeda is more like a series of franchises than a top down organization. So the one point I agree with Ackerman on is that it's a question how closely affiliated Zarqawi is with bin Laden. From this memo, it sounds like bin Laden's boys don't owe him more men and may have their own problems. What would be more natural in that case than emphasizing that he really, really needs help or the Cause may fail?
After all, one of bin Laden's great jihadist innovations was to attempt to bridge the Sunni Islamist-Shia Islamist divide.
This point seems risible to me. Where is the contradiction with reaching out with alliances to Hizbullah on one hand and trying to kill Ayatollah Sistani on the other? Politics makes strange bedfellows, always has. These are alliances of convenience. It seems particularly ludicrous to doubt that the jihadists in Iraq are trying to foment a civil war when they have already been bombing the Shi'a left, right and center. A few months ago they tried to blow up the Shrine of Ali, the holiest mosque in Shi'a Islam. They are clearly trying to ignite civil strife, because chaos in Iraq benefits them, just as order benefits us. That much is obvious.
One other possibility that Ackerman does not consider is that the memo accurately reflects Zarqawi's thinking, but Osama bin Laden's organization does not agree with the proposal. |
