The Scene Meme hits the mainstream.

Zarqawi had grown into a strategic headache for al-Qaeda's founders by demonstrating an independent streak ...

"It was quite clear with Zarqawi that as far as the al-Qaeda core leadership goes, they couldn't control the way in which their network affiliates operated."

Whoever succeeds him will be hard-pressed to ... unite the foreign fighters in Iraq under a single command.

"It's very decentralized. He was the only person in Iraq who could provide the glue."

More and more, Islamic radical groups are becoming splintered and are only loosely affiliated.

"[Units led by Egyptian, Saudi and Algerian commanders] are completely autonomous organizations. They're more powerful than Zarqawi was and have more weaponry and money at their disposal. They all have their own networks, their own fundraising abilities and their own way of bringing in fighters."

In the long term, does al-Z's death help them more than it helps us? It sounds like his Ego was keeping the other crews down. In al-Z's absence, there may be a scramble for power. But this is not the Mafia; the scramble will not cause them to kill each other. Instead, the competition could manifest itself as jihadist peacocking, with each crew trying to outdo the others through a show of force in which their constituents (including prospective recruits) are the primary audience.

Do you think there is a military/intelligence version of killer's remorse?

He also describes the killer's remorse between killings and his frequent promises that this would be the last one.

If killing one thing you know produces three things you don't, are you really making progress?

It also must be remembered that, controversial ideologies aside, many of these people are highly intelligent and well educated. Some are bound to study and learn from the mistakes made by their predecessors -- and evolve into smarter fish.

But what is the alternative? Over the long term, the scene must be co-opted such that it ceases to be an attractive proposition.