James Forsyth

The last few days have been disastrous for community cohesion. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s ill-considered remarks have stirred up a visceral reaction and created the erroneous impression that Muslims can not be expected to abide by the law of the land. To add to the tensions, today’s Sun splashes on the ‘Talibrum’—the British-born members of the Taliban fighting against their own country in Afghanistan. So, the timing of Phil Woolas’s comments about the dangers of cousin marriage in a small section of the Muslim community is unfortunate to say the least. But the demands for him to resign are absurd. Woolas was identifying a problem that is real and did so in measured tones.

There is a hugely encouraging story about the difficulties that al Qaeda in Iraq is facing in The Washington Post today which Joe Klein highlights. In it, one of al Qaeda in Iraq’s top leaders admits that its membership has plummeted from 12,000 in June 2007 to around 3,500 today. A sign of how rattled the terrorists are is revealed in one of their strategy memos which says“Do not interfere in social issues such as head covering, the satellite and other social affairs which are against our religion until further notice". The surge and the Sunni awakening have brought al Qaeda in Iraq to the verge of a momentous defeat. We must not squander this opportunity to defeat the ideology of al Qaeda in the heart of the Middle East.

If you want to know the nature of the enemy in Iraq just consider yesterday’s bombing where two mentally disabled women were used to carry bombs into two pet markets before being remotely detonated. Their tactics tell us all we need to know about the mindset of the terrorists and what they would do to Iraq, and the Middle East more broadly, if given the opportunity. The defeat of these terrorists is the most pressing issue of our time. However, much people might have disagreed about whether or not it was right to go into Iraq in the first place, victory is now imperative.

The war in Iraq has dropped down the news agenda in recent weeks with all but the most determined opponents of the war recognising that the surge has worked militarily. Huge challenges, though, remain as Max Boot argues in the Weekly Standard. The surge has created the opportunity for success but it has certainly not guaranteed it. As Boot notes northern Iraq now needs the same kind of security effort that there has been in Baghdad in the past year. With 61 percent of the violence coming from this region, its problems need to be dealt with before it endangers progress in the rest of Iraq. There also needs to be progress nationwide on reconstruction and making the government work for all its citizens not just its supporters.