al-Rubaie on Zarqawi's Demise

Apparently Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, appeared on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer yesterday, and made a similar arguemnt to the one I proposed earlier as to why Zarqawi's death may speed a political settlement of the Iraqi insurgency.

[T]he medium-term effect of the departure and the death of Zarqawi is going to be huge on this organization, and not only on this organization, but on other groups, insurgent groups if you like. Because those people were reluctant and afraid, from Zarqawi, to join the political process. Now, the road is easy to go and to come back to the political process and to join the Iraqi people, and I believe this is going to encourage a lot of people from the insurgents, the nationalists, the former regime elements, Baathists, (inaudible) and religious extremists, they're going to start joining the political process and joining the new Iraq.