This jumped out at me from a New York Times story this morning:

A defense official said one of the aides, who was captured last week, had told American interrogators that Mr. Zarqawi was less interested in the future of Iraq specifically than he was in establishing a base in Falluja from which to foment violence against the United States and American allies in the region.

There it is: Iraq is a failed state, the perfect breeding ground for terrorism. Or, at the very least, Falluja is a failed, lawless region, a place Zarqawi believes is likely to be out of the reach of civil authority for the forseeable future -- his own little Waziristan.

And it happened on our watch. Nice work.