Iraq - No Longer Occupation Struggle

A bit late to the party but it's nice to see The Washington Post report that the current violence in Iraq is not a struggle against American occupation.

Yet, as the insurgents increasingly go after Iraqi civilians, one thing has become clear: Theirs is not, as many people maintained before the Jan. 30 elections, a struggle against American "occupation." It is a fight against a legitimate government trying to operate under the principle of self-rule -- and trying for the most part, notwithstanding terrible provocations, to include every ethnic group. As Mr. Rumsfeld said, their only strategy is butchery. That doesn't mean they are sure to lose; their barbarism can go a long way toward slowing the economic and political progress that Mr. Rumsfeld said is necessary. It does mean that the United States is right to help the Iraqis battle back.

Nice of you to notice guys but this is not even about a fight againt a legitimate government, the violence now is about punishment, payback and revenge.

The terror attacks are no longer about changing Iraq. They're about punishment.

Embittered and on the run, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi realizes that the tide has turned decisively against him. He and his international gang of terrorists couldn't dislodge the United States military or the Coalition, but only chipped at its edges. Their violence couldn't stop Iraq's elections. They couldn't prevent the formation of a new government.

Now they have to watch as their former allies, Iraq's Sunni Arabs, defect to the elected regime and turn in the foreign terrorists in their neighborhoods.

The terrorists have lost, they know it and now they want revenge.
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