Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been reduced to forcing mentally handicapped women to carry bombs for them. This indicates not only the moral depravity of our enemy, but also their strategic plight. If it were true, as many from the anti-war camp continue to desperately claim, that the U.S. effort is bearing little fruit, why would al-Qaeda find it necessary to violate the religious and cultural taboos that are the very basis of their legitimacy anyway? It seems more likely that al-Qaeda is scraping the bottom of their strategic barrel.

Of course, we must not overstate the matter in the other direction either. The gutting of al-Qaeda’s capabilities does not address the remaining ethnic and religious divisions that endanger Iraq nor does it counter Iran’s growing influence. But this tragedy remains, in strategic terms, a positive sign.