Democratic Underground - That was also my interpretation. I wrote a couple days ago:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/8/74541/27082

Does Zarqawi "Elimination" Signal Bush Deal With Iran?
by leveymg
Thu Jun 08, 2006 at 04:45:41 AM PDT

UPDATED. It's widely conceded within the U.S. intelligence community that Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Sunni militant, has served as an asset in U.S. efforts to slow Iran's consolidation of control over Southern Iraq.

His killing by a U.S. air strike Wednesday, following a tip received from the Shi'a controlled Iraqi gov't and a betrayal within his own organization, comes immediately after an apparent deescalation in tensions between Washington and Iran.

leveymg's diary :: ::
Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, commanded Sunni militia responsible for numerous terrorist attacks targeting religious sites and the population of the 60 percent Shi'a majority in Iraq.

As ABC reported last year, the Bush Administration went out of its way to preserve Zarqawi as an ace up its sleeve to counter the Iranian-allied Shi'a majority regime that would likely succeed Saddam Hussein. According to ABC:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1627197.htm
May 1, 2006.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi ... Former spy says the US had the terrorism figure in its sights.

Bush turned down chances to kill Zarqawi: ex-CIA spy

A former top CIA spy says the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

Mike Scheuer headed the CIA's bin Laden unit for six years before resigning in 2004.

He has told the ABC's Four Corners program the Bush administration had Zarqawi in its sights almost every day for a year.

SNIP

On Thursday, The Guardian (UK) reported that Iraqi PM, Nouri al-Maliki, who is Shi'a, announced that Zarqawi had been "eliminated" after high officials in the Shi'a dominated Iraq regime tipped off the U.S. military to his location. Local residents in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad, reportedly informed Iraqi authorities following a grizzly beheading of 17 Shi'a captives in the area. Zarqawi recently released a video in which he called on Sunnis to rise up and exact partisan reprisals. Zarqawi had previously escaped numerous efforts by American forces to locate and kill him. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1792817,00.html

That was followed by a report in the New York Times that Zarqawi had been betrayed by someone within his own organization, that led U.S. surveillance aircraft and Special Forces to his location.

The death of Zarqawi, who recently denounced Iran, comes just as an apparent Bush Administration shift away from threats of military action toward a diplomatic solution to rising U.S.-Iranian tensions.

Far from the huge victory for the U.S. military that this is being portrayed, the killing of Zarqawi marks the beginning of the end of U.S. attempts to control the outcome in Iraq, and a compromise with Iran, which will surely now move to consolidate control over oil-rich majority Shi'a areas of southern and central Iraq.
____________
2006. Mark G. Levey

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