It's five days old, but it is Mark Steyn....speculating here on what it means for Zarqawi's status that he used a close associate for the Jordan hotel bombing:
Well, by definition it's hard to get suicide bombers with experience. But Mr Shamari's presence suggests at the very least that the "insurgency" is having a hard time meeting its recruitment targets.......Sending a surviving member of your rapidly dwindling inner circle to blow up a Palestinian wedding is not a sign of strength.
True, he did manage to kill a couple of dozen Muslims. But what's the strategic value of that? Presumably, it's an old-fashioned mob heavy's way of keeping the locals in line. And that worked out well, didn't it? Hundreds of thousands of Zarqawi's fellow Jordanians fill the streets to demand his death.
Did they show that on the BBC? Or are demonstrations only news when they're anti-Bush and anti-Blair? And look at it this way: if the "occupation" is so unpopular in Iraq, where are the mass demonstrations against that? I'm not talking 200,000, or even 100 or 50,000. But, if there were just 1,500 folks shouting "Great Satan, go home!" in Baghdad or Mosul, it would be large enough for the media to do that little trick where they film the demo close up so it looks like the place is packed. Yet no such demonstrations take place.
And based on activity in Lebanon and Gaza this weekend, Steve Schippert says it's not going to be a slow news week from Israel.
UPDATE 11/28: Michael Totten reports from the Israeli-Lebanon border. (via Instapundit)
Posted by dan at November 27, 2005 11:30 PM