What's Zarqawi Up To?

No good, as usual, but in his own incompetent fashion:

The attacks are focused primarily in the Shia areas, consistent with the plan outlined in a 17-page letter Zarqawi wrote to Osama bin Laden last year. In it, he posited that what was needed in Iraq was a sectarian civil war, and if the factions would not voluntarily fight each other, it was up to al Qaeda to stir up the pot. As noted here last spring, they have faithfully followed this strategy, even though the results have been disappointing. The terrorists may yet goad the Shia private militia units into taking some kind of action, but it will probably be aimed at the members of al Qaeda who, generally not being Iraqis, will probably find few defenders.

As a postscript to the July 13 massacre and further reminder of the type of people we are up against, on Saturday a Libyan, undoubtedly one of Zarqawi’s men, was apprehended while en route to bomb a funeral for children victimized the previous Wednesday. The bomber was wrapped in explosive-and-ball bearings, and high on drugs to the point of overdose (which tells us something about how they get some of their followers to undertake their missions). So a drugged-up suicide attacker was sent to kill innocent mourners at the graveside of child victims of another suicide bombing ordered by foreigners to foment a civil war to assist in the creation of a terrorist state? Trench warfare looks straightforward and reasonable by comparison.

Far from recent events making Zarqawi and his lot of foreign terrorists more secure, he is more and more desparate. One doesn't blow up children to win adherents. This is the last-ditch bid to terrorize the populace into sitting on the sidelines and not supporting the new Iraqi government.

It won't work, and once Zarqawi's dead, the insurgency will die with him.