Breaking Contact

James S. Robbins looks at the impact of the death of Zarqawi and concludes that it's all about networking.

It is not clear that terrorist leaders are as fungible as some people would like to think. Someone like Zarqawi, with decades of experience in the craft of terrorism, will not be easily replaced. Terror networks are built on personal connections, and it will be difficult for the bad guys to rebuild from the loss of such a critical node in their associational scheme. Whether Abu Hamza has what it takes remains to be seen. But there is a clear deterrent effect in targeting terrorist leaders. The Israelis have been successful at it. Saudi Arabia too — each time they took down a leader of the local al Qaeda outfit, the terrorists would announce a new one — until so many went down they stopped identifying their leaders.

Looks like the next step is to start targeting the terrorist meet-and-greets.