Something is shifting in Iraq

for the good. Evidence and the signs are everywhere - for those who wish to see. The latest evidence is found in Al Qaeda #2 (now #1?) Ayman Al Zawahiri's latest video rant: he seemed a bit desperate about Iraq, and a little bitter. Zawahiri's was not the presentation of a man who is winning. The enemy is neither mystical, undefeatable, nor inexhaustible. Wretchard analyzes Zawahiri's video:

[Zawahiri's] great fortune lay in that Iraq was so close, being in Arabia, to the sources of his recruitment that he was able generate a much greater force than has been possible in Afghanistan. And yet he is running out of recruits. It occurs to me that the American strategy of raising the Sunnis against the al-Qaeda has had international repercussions. Those same Sunnis are telling their contacts in other Arab countries that al-Qaeda is the enemy. In an indirect way the battlefield has produced what diplomacy was supposed to and could not. It has alienated al-Qaeda from some of its Sunni base. If I am right, it's a thunderclap.

Wretchard is right, imo. And it is a thunderclap. Iraqis understand America better than before. Iraqis understand Al Qaeda's barbarism better than before. If you understand both America and Al Qaeda, you do not choose to be with Al Qaeda and against America. You choose to be with America. Something has shifted. It's a thunderclap.