In the feeding frenzy following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it is perhaps the Arab press that got it right.

Zarqawi and his followers, many Arab pundits opined, were not merely insurgents fighting against Americans, against Shiites, against Kurds, or against Christians. They were fighting for an idea that deserves to die across the Muslim human landscape of 1.1 billion persons.

Zarqawi’s quest was not only for an Islamic caliphate in Iraq but also to connect the dots across the Islamic fundamentalist map in Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and much of the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

“Let us remember,” the executive director of the widely viewed Saudi television network Al Arabiya, Abdurrah man Al Rashed, wrote on Saturday, “that Zarqawi was not acting out his butcheries alone in the dark but supported by words, deeds, and sermons and preaches at Mosques, in theocratic institutes, and across (the Arab and Muslim worlds) media.”

Mr. Rashed went on to say, in Arabic, in one of the largest circulation dailies, Asharq Al Awsat, that “Zarqawi is the living proof to how widespread the decease of extremism has spread in our society.”

As such, Zarqawi’s quest in Iraq was not merely evicting Americans, or bringing about a sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis – which they can do themselves – but hauling over the coals the whole notion of a civil, secular, federated, or any kind of government other than one based upon Muslim fundamentalism steeped in 17th-century Islam.

As Mr. Rashed noted, this is an already widespread project with a network of material and spiritual support among existing governments and Muslim countries – most especially Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – and across a huge web of Muslim societies stretching out of the Arabian Peninsula into the Muslim communities of Europe, Asia, Australia, and America.

Indeed, Zarqawi’s project is not alien at all. It was, however, important because of the enormous strategic weight of the effort in Iraq. The caliphate cutout has taken form elsewhere with multiple levels of acquiescence.

To Zarqawi and his eventual successors, it is simply Iraq’s turn for social engineering from a once secular society to a society of God, joining what the French press likes to describe as “God’s Nuts.”

Indeed, “Islam is the Solution” and “Islam Above Laws” are the mother slogans to all Islamic movements, including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah, to cite three ascending movements that, while not yet as deeply steeped in blood as Zarqawi’s, are well on their way.

Adding Iraq to that constellation was Zarqawi’s mission.

It is too early to say he failed because others stand ready to carry the flame. However, it is not too early to redefine America’s quest for Iraqi democracy. It is clear that this goal is far too ambitious to attain in one or even two generations. But the prevention of Islamic nihilism may not be.

Of all those who managed Iraq since the invasion, going all the way back to the catastrophic Paul Bremmer III, it appears that General George Casey Jr., the top American commander, is one of few strategists focusing on what’s really important out there: clearing the field of the most poisonous of poison ivy.

Until now, the American project in Iraq morphed and changed and stumbled because it lacked a focus that this commander may be finally bringing to the fight.

From the news reports, it seems General Casey has reached several realistic conclusions, namely that there is no point in America getting involved in a civil war best left to the Iraqis, but also that emasculating, unmasking, and exposing the network of Islamic nihilists, lead by caliphate madmen such as Zarqawi, is a task upon which other segments of Iraqi society can agree and other militias can assemble.

Eventually the American army will retreat to permanent and firm military bases with a much smaller number of troops, leaving Iraqis to settle things in their own streets along the right balance of power – but one without Zarqawis.

One cannot be as optimistic as Adel Malek, an Arab columnist for the daily Al Hayat who wrote yesterday that: “From now Iraqis in Iraq will speak of the eras ‘Before Zarqawi’ and ‘After Zarqawi.'”

Things may never be as exquisite as BZ and AZ but at least America’s focus now should be to give Iraqis a leveled field for mayhem without Islamic fundamentalist caliphate advocates crowding the territory.