OF COURSE, ONCE THEY’RE ALL IN IRAQ it’ll be that much easier for us to take over Saudi Arabia should its government prove uncooperative in matters of antiterrorism:

Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned. . . .

According to Saad al-Faguih, a UK-based Saudi dissident, the Saudi authorities are concerned that up to 3,000 Saudi men have gone “missing” in the kingdom in two months, although it is not clear how many have crossed into Iraq.

Saudis who have gone to Iraq have established links with sympathetic Iraqis in the northern area between Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit, where they have hidden in safe-houses, a Saudi Islamist source said on Monday.

Pressure on Islamists in Saudi Arabia has grown since the bombing of an expatriate residential compound in May killed 35 people. The subsequent arrest of many Islamists has forced some underground while others are trying to flee to Iraq.

Flypaper, indeed.

UPDATE: Here’s more on the Saudi/Wahabbist connection.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile TAPPED says Bush is changing his story. You see, back in May Bush said “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” But now he’s saying “‘major military operations’ are over.”

Somehow, the difference doesn’t exactly leap off the page. At least TAPPED is big enough to admit it was wrong before: “Conquering Iraq turned out to be relatively easy, far easier than Tapped and other critics thought it would be.” Tapped goes on to say that the peace is harder than the war, to which I can only respond: well, yes. And, funny thing, Bush said that, too, in a speech that wasn’t quite as triumphalist as TAPPED makes it sound:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. . . . The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

As TAPPED and President Bush agree, the rebuilding is the hard part. And it takes patience. Which is why partisan carping isn’t helpful.