“Sunni extremism is now in retreat."

Former CIA case Officer Reuel Marc Gerecht argues today that, barring a precipitous U.S. abandonment of the country, “Iraq could well become America's decisive victory over Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and all those Muslims who believe that God has sanctified violence against the United States.”

Gerecht bases his argument on two observations. The first is the apparently tiny number of jihadist radicals now entering Iraq from neighboring countries, especially when compared to the large number of fighters who traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviets.

“In the 1980s,” he writes, “the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most well-organized Islamist movement, was at the center of the anti-Soviet jihadist recruitment effort. But in the case of Iraq, the Brotherhood has largely sat out the war. Even in Saudi Arabia, the mother ship of virulently anti-American, anti-Shiite, anti-moderate Muslim Wahhabism, the lack of commitment has been striking. We should have seen thousands, not hundreds, of Saudi true believers descending on Iraq.”

It’s important to note that, whatever the raw numbers of jihadis in Iraq, they have been by far the most lethal aspect of the so-called “insurgency”; their aim all along was to foment a sectarian civil war among Iraqis, especially by slaughtering as many innocent Shiite men, women, and children as possible.

Gerecht’s second point is that the jihadis who have entered the country have not been embraced by the Iraqis. As he puts it, “the arrival of foreign holy warriors is deradicalizing the local population -- the exact opposite of what happened in Afghanistan.”

According to Gerecht, the result is that “Sunni extremism is now in retreat. More important, the gruesome anti-Shiite tactics of extremist groups, combined with the much-quoted statements made by former Sunni insurgents about the positive actions of the United States in Iraq, have caused a great deal of intellectual turbulence in the Arab world.”

Gerecht’s argument about the state of Sunni extremism is consistent with polls released last year by Pew, which found that “large and growing numbers of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere rejecting Islamic extremism.”

According to Pew, “The percentage of Muslims saying that suicide bombing is justified in the defense of Islam has declined dramatically over the past five years in five of eight countries where trends are available. In Lebanon, for example, just 34% of Muslims say suicide bombings in the defense of Islam are often or sometimes justified; in 2002, 74% expressed this view.” In that survey, Al Qaeda’s reputation in the Muslim world had plummeted. To use Bin Laden’s own imagery, he had become the “weak horse” in his battle with the U.S.

“It's way too soon to call Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda spiritual outcasts among Arab Muslims, but they have in fact sustained enormous damage throughout the region because of Iraq,” writes Gerecht. “If bin Ladenism is now on the decline -- and it may well be among Arabs -- then Iraq has played an essential part in battering the movement's spiritual appeal.”