That'll help

Making a strategic alliance with our former Sunni enemies in Anbar province, and enlisting them to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq has been one of the key factors enabling Gen. Petraeus to claim a degree of success in promoting the "surge" before Congress this week. Of course, whether the Anbar strategy has anything to do with the surge is debatable, but if it results in safer conditions and fewer casualties among US service men and women, it sounds good to me.

I'm neither smart enough nor serious enough to comment on the wisdom of arming people who used to blow us up, and may very well do so again. But here's something i think i can talk about:

A Sunni tribal leader instrumental in driving al Qaeda out of Iraq's Anbar province was killed by a bomb attack on Thursday, less than two weeks after he met U.S. President George W. Bush.

Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed near his home in Ramadi, capital of Anbar. He was the most influential leader of an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that joined forces with U.S. troops to push al Qaeda from much of the western region.

All right, you say. People get killed in Iraq all the time. It's really no different than Philadelphia. And maybe you'd be right. But by all accounts, Abu Risha was a pretty important guy in enabling this whole Anbar thing to take place and be successful, and you'd think that both Washington and Baghdad would have a little more invested in his safety. And what was Baghdad's response to the murder?

"We believe Abu Risha was one of the most important security personnel in Iraq," said Brigadier-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

"The minister of interior has made an order that a statue be erected where he was killed or in any other place that the people of Anbar select."

That'll show 'em who's boss.