Islamic Army in Iraq has achieved its own measure of bloody infamy: the murder last August of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni. It also claims the shoot-down of a civilian helicopter that killed 11 passengers earlier this year, including six Americans. The lone survivor, a Bulgarian pilot, emerged from the videotaped crash injured but alive before being shot dead to cries of "Allahu akbar" (Allah is great).
If "Jaish Mohammed" is the same as "Jaish-e-Mohammed," U.S. officials sat down with still another gang of thugs -- this one Pakistani-based -- with ties to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. As for the Shoura Council of Mujahideen, which the Times described as "lesser known," a Google search turned up a possible clue at ArabicNews.com. The Web site reported that the "Iraqi Mujahideen Shoura Council" was the group responsible for kidnapping Douglas Wood, the Australian engineer recently rescued by American and Iraqi forces. If these slightly different names stand for the same group, it could well be that while these mujahideen were holding an Australian captive, they were also dunking crumpets with American brass.
In other words, that was some tea party the United States of America threw. If this guest list is legit, it represents a ghastly capitulation to terrorists and a strategic victory for terrorism -- living proof that it's possible to kill and behead and hack and dismember and terrify your way to a peace parlay with the U.S.A. This suggests that we may now be seeking an accommodation with Islamic terror networks rather than their obliteration or even containment. And that suggests a sea change in strategy, vision and soul.
But maybe, after almost four years into this brutal war, that sea change is already behind us.
For what is also remarkable about these no-longer-secret talks is how unremarkable their revelation has been. Talking with terrorists is no longer taboo. Come Hamas, come Hezbollah, come Ansar al-Sunna: America is pouring tea.