Zawahiri's Latest Gambit

This latest gambit isn't going to sit well with some Democrats. At least it shouldn't.

Al Qaeda has sent a message to leaders of the Democratic party that credit for the defeat of congressional Republicans belongs to the terrorists.

In a portion of the tape from al Qaeda No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, made available only today, Zawahri says he has two messages for American Democrats.

"The first is that you aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost," Zawahri said, according to a full transcript obtained by ABC News.

Zawahri calls on the Democrats to negotiate with him and Osama bin Laden, not others in the Islamic world who Zawahri says cannot help.

So, Zawahiri thinks that Democrats are more likely to negotiate with al Qaeda, which is a position that the GOP has consistently taken in portraying the Democrats as weak on foreign policy and the war on terror.

I think he's spot on with that analysis. Democrats, from John Kerry on down, appear more than willing to stop fighting terrorism and sit them down at a table to discuss our differences.

It's interesting that this comes at a time when the US places al Qaeda behind the insurgents as the primary threat in Iraq and when al Qaeda appears to have conceded the battlefield in Iraq to safer climates of Somalia, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa.

Zawahiri continues to harp upon the notion that if a Muslim is somehow engaged in a democratic process or negotiations with the West that we should not be dealing with them. And the reemergence of Palestinian conflict as a talking point for al Qaeda is interesting.

Others blogging and taking note of how the Democrats are perceived as the party of negotiation and not standing up against the jihad: Hot Air, Jawa Report (who reports that the Democrats didn't win; al Qaeda did), Flopping Aces, Stop the ACLU, Blue Crab Boulevard, Charles at LGF, Redstate, and Dan Riehl.

Now, this has a potential to backfire on al Qaeda. Surely, one can hope that Democrats will realize that this puts them in an incredibly bad position. After all, al Qaeda is responsible for the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,996 Americans on US soil and the US has a policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists. Yet, given the tone-deafness by the leading lights of the Democrat party, there is little reason to think that the Democrats will not do everything within their power to curtail the military operations around the world that have thus far been part of a strategy including more vigorous intel methods that have prevented another mass casualty attack within the continental US. Democrats have been poised to reevaluate and undermine intel programs designed to listen in on terrorist communications from overseas, reinstitute a draft in order that the national will is further undermined, and cut funding for the war in Iraq, which would only severely damage our credibility as a partner in a global war against the Islamists and jihadis.