Juan Cole writes the following:
Meanwhile, rumors circulated of severe tensions between Monotheism and Holy War and other guerrilla organizations in Iraq, including other Sunni religious ones, and suggesting that the latter had asked Zarqawi and his group to leave Iraq. The sources suggested that Tuesday’s backing off of total war on the Shiites came in response to these tensions. [Cole: I don’t find these reports of dissension over this issue among the guerrillas particularly credible. They are unsourced. And why would Baathists or Salafis be upset if “Zarqawi” (or whoever) targets the Da’wa Party or the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq?) Along these lines, the neo-Baathist “Army of Muhammad” released a statement Tuesday that Zarqawi’s group claimed credit for a lot of attacks on US troops and other targets that were actually carried out by the Army of Muhammad. [To any close observer, this charge seems self-evident.]
And:
Riyadh al-Nuri, a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr, said that Zarqawi’s exemption of the Sadrists from attack was an attempt to sow dissension in the ranks of the Shiites. Al-Nuri said that the Sadrists consider al-Qaeda and Zarqawi “their most diehard enemies” and that “were he to fall into the hands of the Sadrists they would tear him limb from limb.”
Cole’s source spoke of two separate reactions, one by Baathists and the other by Shiites, yet he conflates the two. It seems obvious why both interests are not served well by Zarqawi’s presence but remain at odds with each other just as both groups are opposed to the U.S. occupation but have different goals post-exit. Zarqawi is a boost to U.S. reasoning there shouldn’t be one. If the insurgency succeeds in eliminating this minor annoyance from the field then the U.S. would be hard pressed to invent an acceptable excuse for staying.