[Marxism] How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as America?s nemesis in Iraq

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Atlantic Monthly | July/August 2006

The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as 
America?s nemesis in Iraq
by Mary Anne Weaver

(clip)

After I returned from Jordan, in mid-March, what had appeared to be a 
growing challenge to al-Zarqawi from local Sunni insurgent groups, which 
had reportedly expelled hundreds of his fighters from the troubled western 
province of al-Anbar alone, seemed to have been put aside. The upsurge in 
Sunni-Shiite killings, as the result of the February bombing of Samarra?s 
Askariya Shrine (one of Shia Islam?s holiest sites), had led, at least for 
the moment, to a newfound unity between al-Zarqawi and the Sunni 
insurgency. Then, in early April, Huthaifa Azzam announced that the ?Iraqi 
resistance?s high command? had stripped al-Zarqawi of his political role 
and relegated him to military operations. It was the second time that 
al-Zarqawi?s profile had seemingly been lowered?or that he had lowered 
it?this year. The first had come in January, when it was announced that 
al-Qaeda in Iraq had joined five other Sunni insurgent groups to form a 
coalition called the Mujahideen Shura Council. By early May, U.S. 
counterterrorism analysts were still puzzling over what the two events 
meant and what changes they could portend.

As they debated, al-Zarqawi sprang to life again, in a video posted on the 
Internet on April 24. It was the first time he had appeared in a jihadist 
videotape, and the first time he had shown his face. Dressed in black 
fatigues and a black cap, he had ammunition pouches strapped across his 
chest. He appeared fit, if overweight, as he posed in the desert firing an 
automatic weapon and as he sat with a group of masked aides, apparently 
plotting strategy. It seemed an extremely risky thing for him to do, and 
yet it also appeared to be very deliberate. It was a useful tool for 
recruitment, intending to show al-Zarqawi as both a flamboyant fighter and 
a pensive strat­egist. More important than anything else, however, it was 
meant to show the world that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?the brash young man who 
had come of age in the rough-and-tumble of Zarqa?remained relevant.

Before leaving Amman, three months before al-Zarqawi?s death, I had asked 
the high-level Jordanian intelligence official with whom I met whether 
al-Zarqawi, in his view, was a potential challenger to Osama bin Laden.

?Not at all,? he replied. ?Zarqawi had the ambition to become what he has, 
but whatever happens, even if he becomes the most popular figure in Iraq, 
he can never go against the symbolism that bin Laden represents. If Zarqawi 
is captured or killed tomorrow, the Iraqi insurgency will go on. There is 
no such thing as ?Zarqawism.? What Zarqawi is will die with him. Bin Laden, 
on the other hand, is an ideological thinker. He created the concept of 
al-Qaeda and all of its offshoots. He feels he?s achieved his goal.? He 
paused for a moment, then said, ?Osama bin Laden is like Karl Marx. Both 
created an ideology. Marxism still flourished well after Marx?s death. And 
whether bin Laden is killed, or simply dies of natural causes, al-Qaedaism 
will survive him.?

Full: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/zarqawi.

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