"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida's fight in Iraq," Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview at his office at the U.S. Embassy.
Whatever the result, Petraeus said no one should expect al-Qaida to give up entirely in Iraq.
"They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," he said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
So we have to make sure the Iraqis can chase down al Qaeda thugs and provide whatever help we can. This will be more of a special forces-led operation as long as the Iraqis can keep al Qaeda from grouping in any geographic area.
The Iranians, who have been driven from Iraq in large measure, are still trying to push their people and weapons into Iraq. Major General Oates described how we will focus on the border with Iran to shut down this smuggling route to prevent Iran from having a free hand in restarting violence:
For much of the war, U.S. and Iraqi forces were focused mainly on al-Qaida and other insurgent forces that threatened to plunge the country into all-out civil war. Shiite extremist groups inside Iraq took advantage of that narrow focus to develop a network of weapons supply routes from Iran, he said.
"Now that al-Qaida is hurt very badly, we're able to shift our emphasis and take a look at this other threat — and this is a significant threat that these Iranian-based extremist groups are attempting" to carry out, he said, not only by killing American troops but also seeking to topple the Iraqi government.
Oates called the weapons smuggling from Iran "the last remaining major threat" to be handled for Iraq.
I'd be more specific and call them the last remaining armed major threat. We still have corruption to address as part of our effort to keep quarrels in Iraq limited to political means within a democratic system based on rule of law.
So just think of the defeat of this armed threat as a mission to be accomplished. We have more missions to go.
But even as the anti-war side claims Iraqis (or perhaps all Arabs--I'm not sure how their supposedly progressive nature judges this) are incapable of democracy, remember that they said that we were incapable of defeating the various enemies inside Iraq aided and paid for by Iran and Sunni Arabs.
At the end of the day, however, I'm sure all Americans can rejoice that we've defeated the killers inside Iraq and have them on the run. Surely no American would want to risk losing this accomplishment, right?
