Tonight's speech from President Bush and John McCain's response shows that we're going to experience a year's worth of misinformation on the nature of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Everybody needs to cowboy up, or hunker down, or man the barricades, or whatever it is you do in this situation. Let's start clarifying the situation by going to Rear Admiral Smith's conference call (PDF) on the subject and associated briefing slides (PDF).
In short, "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" consists of a large-ish number Iraqi foot soldiers, a smaller number of foreign fighters, all directed by a small number of foreign leaders. When asked about the relationship between AQI and The Real Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan & Pakistan (and to a lesser extent Egypt), Admiral Smith pointed to "a communication flow between the senior leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan and the senior leaders here in Iraq". But what exactly is it the leadership in Pakistan is doing with these lines of communication? What sort of "safe haven" can they plausibly create in Iraq? Would the current organizational structure persist if the US gave Sunnis a larger stake in Iraq while they began withdrawing? Would the Iraqis possess the desire and capability to organize attacks once the occupation leaves? No one's even attempted to answer these questions; instead we get nostrums about surrender will immediately lead to Osama bin Laden moving to Fallujah and recruiting Zarqawi's successor to fly a plane into Yankee Stadium. There's no reason to take this view as gospel.
