Donald Sensing is sensing signs that the civil war within Islam is shifting toward the reformists. I hope he’s right, because the alternative is almost unthinkable. And even if he’s right, a long war remains ahead.

[Update a few minutes later]

Claudia Rossett has additional thoughts on the meaning of yesterday’s victory (sorry, no scare quotes–it was a huge victory, particularly combined with the government jelling). She offers some badly needed perspective:

…this is an excellent moment to step back and look at just how far in this war we have come. Five years ago, al-Qaeda’s commanders, from their safe haven in Afghanistan, were training thousands of terrorists and planning the Sept. 11 strike on a sleeping America. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein ruled by terror, with a record of exporting brutality and war from Baghdad at any opportunity to wherever he could reach – invading his neighbors, rewarding Palestinian suicide bombers, and openly rejoicing over Sept. 11.

Today, elected governments lead Afghanistan and Iraq, which has just completed its cabinet lineup. Bin Laden is afraid to venture out of hiding; Saddam, pulled from his spider hole, is on trial in Baghdad. And now, Zarqawi is dead, and the circumstances of his death may encourage decent people not only in Iraq but elsewhere to help hunt down his collaborators.

This is the benefit. What she doesn’t mention is the cost. And in the context of history, it’s trivial. I’ll use an adjective that many will find appalling, but it’s perfectly valid. We did it with the loss of only two or three thousand soldiers. This would have been a small toll for many single battles of past wars, with much less beneficial results. Think about that leverage again. We have liberated fifty million people with the loss of less than 0.01% of that number in American troop losses. Even if one adds in all of the innocent Iraqis who have died (and they’re not to be trivialized, but they also have to be balanced against those who would have continued to die under the brutality and deprivation of Saddam’s regime), it remains an amazing feat.

In my little satire, recall that the War Between the States cost many tens of thousands of lives of American troops (just on the Union side–many more when adding in the Confederacy). Get a little perspective, people.

To paraphrase someone else, never before have so few had to give their lives for so many.

[Update on Friday morning]

Christopher Hitchens explains the significance of Zarqawi’s death, and the dire consequences that would result if we listened to the continuing misguided calls for immediate withdrawal:

Most fascinating of all is the suggestion that Zarqawi was all along receiving help from the mullahs in Iran. He certainly seems to have been able to transit their territory (Herat is on the Iranian border with Afghanistan) and to replenish his forces by the same route. If this suggestive connection is proved, as Weaver suggests it will be, then we have the Shiite fundamentalists in Iran directly sponsoring the murderer of their co-religionists in Iraq. This in turn would mean that the Iranian mullahs stood convicted of the most brutish and cynical irresponsibility, in front of their own people, even as they try to distract attention from their covert nuclear ambitions. That would be worth knowing. And it would become rather difficult to argue that Bush had made them do it, though no doubt the attempt will be made.

If we had withdrawn from Iraq already, as the “peace” movement has been demanding, then one of the most revolting criminals of all time would have been able to claim that he forced us to do it. That would have catapulted Iraq into Stone Age collapse and instated a psychopathic killer as the greatest Muslim soldier since Saladin. As it is, the man is ignominiously dead and his dirty connections a lot closer to being fully exposed. This seems like a good day’s work to me.

Me, too.