Michael Yon has a new venue to explain Iraq, both directly to the American people, and to the media and politicians who (either ignorantly or mendaciously, or perhaps both) continue to mislead them about it being simply a civil war:

When it comes to Iraq, being there matters because of the massive disconnect between what most Americans think they know about Iraq, and what is actually going on there.

The current controversy about the extent to which Al Qaeda is a threat to peace in Iraq is a case in point. Questions about which group calling itself an offshoot of Al Qaeda is really an offshoot of Al Qaeda is a distraction masquerading as a debate.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq, intentionally inflaming sectarian hostilities, deliberately pushing for full scale civil war. They do this by launching attacks against Shia, Sunni, Kurds and coalition forces. To ensure the attacks provoke counterattacks, they make them particularly gruesome…

…Clearly, not every terrorist in Iraq is Al Qaeda, but it is Al Qaeda that has been intentionally, openly, brazenly trying to stoke a civil war. As Al Qaeda is now being chased out of regions it once held without serious challenge, their tactics are tinged with desperation.

This may be the greatest miscalculation they’ve made in their otherwise sophisticated battle for the hearts and minds of locals, and it is one we must exploit.

Whether it was in 2002 is irrelevant. Iraq is the current front line in the war. Yon knows it. The administration knows it. Even Al Qaeda repeatedly admits it.

To abandon it now will be to give the enemy a great victory, and show bin Laden to be right, that when the going gets tough, America (and the West) abandons the field. It would demonstrate that their viciousness works in accomplishing their vile goals.

And it would be all the more tragic if it happened at a time in which we are actually winning on the ground, if not in the media.