al-Zarqawi: goodbye to Bush & Blair's best pal

If it's true - and none of the news sources seem to be asking this basic question; there are a lot of people in Iraq who resemble him - the death of al-Zarqawi is both the best and worst news the fading Bush-Blair era could have in its final months.

Reason: when al-Zarqawi 'swore allegiance to Osama' - showing a fine understanding of brand marketing and line extension - he kicked off the al-Qaeda brand in Iraq, where it never existed before. Which provided some justification for moving the War on Terror's goalposts ("al-Qaeda's in Iraq! Wahey!") and instantly rebranding the insurgents as al-Qaeda terrorists.

(While al-Zarqawi and bin Laden apparently met some years back, the 'core' al-Qaeda goal of a restored Caliphate is a long way from the civil war between Muslims al-Zarqawi supports. And bin Laden's recent cassette broadcast was largely a response to al-Zarqawi's usurping of the al-Qaeda idea. Osama got PO'd that another guy was getting all the column inches.)

Still, at least there's one less chop-happy gunman in the world. But it's dreary just how predictably these things pan out when the US overthrows a nation, as it's done every nine years on average since 1890. First, the US creates a figurehead (as with bin Laden and his Afghanistan crew in the 80s) then it knocks him down (switching support to Russia post-Soviet era), then figurehead rises again to cause hassle. There are some smart people in the USA; why do they pay so little attention to second-order effects?