It appears that Zarqawi was ratted out by one of his own guys, which led to the surveillance of his 'spiritual advisor' that led to the rendevous with two 500 lb bombs. It was, according to Christopher Hitchens, a good piece of work by all involved. Michael Ledeen says we may be in the midst of one of the greatest counterterrorism operations of all time, as he connects the Zarqawi strike to the 17 other raids held simultaneously in Iraq and the arrests happening elsewhere, including in Canada, Switzerland and the UK. Ledeen believes that, despite the Shiite-hating pronouncements and murders committed by Zarqawi that he really was doing his dirty work with the help and at the direction of the Mullahs in Iran.

Despite his intonations against the Shiites, and his manifest efforts to promote civil war in Iraq, Zarqawi was happy to work with the radical Shiite regime in Tehran, and they were happy to work with him. It is quite wrong to view him as a leader of one faction in a religious war; his promotion of religious conflict was simply a tactic designed to destabilize Iraq and drive out the Coalition. He and his Iranian backers/masters were desperate to promote all manner of internal Iraqi conflict: Kurds against Arabs, Turkamen against Kurds, anything that worked. ItÂ?s The Godfather all over again: the terror masters put aside their differences, sat down around the table, and made a war plan in which Sunni and Shia, Syrian and Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi cooperated against their common satanic enemy, the United States.

I have long thought that we should look at these guys like the Mafia, including the rulers of the terror states like Iran and Syria. They operate within a common framework of language and rules, but they still have their differences and can fight each other. As Ledeen says, they have set aside their differences in order to make common cause against the United States. This does not mean that they will not ever fight each other again or betray one another when the timing seems right. This, no doubt, happens all the time. Still, they share certain goals, the most important of which is to drive the United States out of the region. Should they ever succeed, they will almost certainly fall to fighting each other over the spoils. But to ignore the connections, as so many in our intelligence and security apparatus are prone to do, is dangerous. As long as the Mullahs hold power in Iran, they will continue to provide all sorts of aid to terrorists like Zarqawi in their effort to prevent a true democratic Iraq from emerging.

Meanwhile, to make sure they keep their hold on power, the Mullahs are continuing their efforts to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq writes this op-ed outlining his government's strategy to build a secure Iraq.