So I don't dismiss this talk from Al Qaeda in Iraq:
In an hour-long audio speech, the spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said the group was growing stronger "despite all the difficulties and challenges" and was still training and sheltering foreign fighters, the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said late Monday.
"As for you, satanic Awakenings, we strive to guide you more than you strive to kill us. If you come to us in repentance, we will accept your repentance even if you killed a million people," Adnani said, according to SITE.
"Do not stand in the way between us and the (Shi'ites) ... We will not get bored or tired; rather, we will continue until the Day of Judgment, and we will kill from amongst you only those who we see will never return."
It is nice of al Qaeda in Iraq to remind us that they hate Shias (so explain again how America caused the jihadis to hate Shias?).
But more important, it should remind us that the Sunni Arabs flipped to our side out of fear that only America could protect them against both the jihadis and the Shia-dominated government and their Kurdish allies. If we leave at the end of this year, the Sunni Arabs could again decide that their only salvation is a renewed alliance with the jihadis.
In the long run, that deal with the Devil won't work out for them any more than it did the first time. But in the short run it will increase the death toll in Iraq and threaten the fragile institutions of democracy and rule of law in the new Iraq.
Our military presence in Iraq is an insurance policy to all the factions in Iraq that they can risk using rule of law and politics to resolve differences without the fatal consequences of losing under the old rules of winner-takes-all. Under the old rules, you used whatever it took to win and killed or jailed whoever stood in your path.
We must stay in Iraq. Our victory could yet be reversed.
