Liberal Talk Radio

Juan Cole writes about al Qaeda’s general absence from direct confrontation with Israel:

…Bin Laden always avoided investing in an area where there was already an active insurgency. He also could not join in with heretical Shiites like Hizbulah.

Ayman al Zawahiri today made a change in both policies. He wants al Qaeda to pile on in Gaza and to defend Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Nothing like a little dose of anti-Americanism to bring together rival Shia and Sunni. Which is why Cole draws the wrong conclusion when he says:

As usual, Israel is radicalizing the Muslim world. The US, too, will suffer.

“Radicalizing”? Maybe. But uniting? Definitely! In fact, our best hope for the future of Iraq is that Shia and Sunni will stop fighting each other and instead turn their anger at the U.S., forcing us out.

(Note: tounge planted firmly in cheek for this post. Well, most of it. That last part about Iraq is actually true. As David Brooks wrote over two years ago, “To earn their own freedom, the Iraqis need a victory. And since it is too late for the Iraqis to have a victory over Saddam, it is imperative that they have a victory over us. If the future textbooks of a free Iraq get written, the toppling of Saddam will be vaguely mentioned in one clause in one sentence. But the heroic Iraqi resistance against the American occupation will be lavishly described, page after page. For us to succeed in Iraq, we have to lose.”)