The flypaper zombie

In a remark likely to embarrass even its intended beneficiaries, the Wall Street Journal politics blog reports --

... the Bush administration got a political boost from Iraq’s president. In an interview on the PBS show The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he disagreed with the [National Intelligence Estimate] report’s contention that the Iraq war had worsened the global terrorist threat. "I think the invasion of Iraq reduced the danger of terrorism on the United States of America because all terrorist groups are now concentrating on Iraq," he said.

Thus, the flypaper theory is back, and as usual left unsaid is any discussion of when the Iraqi people volunteered to get caught in the crossfire. Note also that Talabani is Kurdish, so his sense of how Iraq gains from being a shooting gallery might be a bit warped.

UPDATE: Flypaper may be all that's left of the Iraq war rationale, given the now declassified findings of the National Intelligence Estimate --

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause célèbre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Meaning that the only hope of success is to attract all these people to Iraq.

FINAL UPDATE: Right on cue, the flypaper enthusiast James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal wheels it out in connection with the killing by British troops of Bagram escapee Omar al-Farouq (who was hiding in Basra, not participating in the insurgency):

we know the argument is that if Saddam Hussein hadn't been toppled, Faruq wouldn't have been in Iraq. That is, he wouldn't have been in Iraq where allied troops could kill him.

But wasn't the accusation against Saddam that terrorists were taking refuge there while he still ruled?