President Bush was admirably understated when he appeared at the White House to make remarks in respect of the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. He’s well aware that we have a long way to go in this war. But congratulations are certainly in order, to him and to the American military and our British and Iraqi partners, for finding and killing one of the most nihilistic enemies this nation has ever faced. It is an impressive feat, to locate one man among 26 million in a country twice the size of Idaho and in war-time conditions and then to kill him with two Falcons that dropped two 500-pound bombs.

It was a development in the war on Islamic extremist terrorism that not even some of the Bush administration’s toughest critics found fit to criticize. An organizer of the antiwar protest group United for Peace and Justice, Leslie Cagan, told us yesterday that she would not condemn the killing. “There seems to have been a body of evidence that this man has been involved in terrorist activities,” she conceded. The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, said that because Zarqawi was a battlefield combatant, America was “perfectly within its rights” to try to kill him rather than arresting him and putting him on trial.

The human rights activist said he had “no problem” with even America’s release of the photo of Zarqawi’s corpse, saying there is “no prohibition” on such conduct under international law. Though the American air strike that killed Zarqawi also reportedly killed a woman and a child, we didn’t hear a peep of the politically correct protests that usually attend collateral damage in Israel counterterror raids.

Mr. Bush outlined some of Zarqawi’s deeds yesterday morning when he said Zarqawi “personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman.” We thought he conveyed just the right sense of the situation. Steady, determined, and aware of what we are up against.

Our enemy in this war is a multi-headed monster, and unless America helps to spread freedom and democracy in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and yes, even Zarqawi’s native country of Jordan, more Zarqawis will arise to replace the one slain on the battlefield of Iraq. But individuals matter, even in vast struggles. It helps us win the war to send the message that one can’t behead Americans with impunity. We share the sense of relief of the Iraqi people, so many of whom have felt the tragedy that was wreaked by the enemy who has been slain.