…over al Qaeda. Brilliant lefty French intellectual from Sciences Po (for Politiques), Gilles Kepel, says correctly what I’ve been arguing for some time, namely that AQI has been battered in Iraq and is having trouble recruiting. Meanwhile Chatham House’s resident apologist for terrorism insists that al Qaeda’s doing jes’ fine.

Odd times, indeed. Once upon a time the Brits were empiricist and actually looked at the evidence before reaching a conclusion, while the French were good Cartesians who reasoned from first principles, and the facts be damned. This looks like a switcheroo. Anyone who thinks al Qaeda is doing well in Iraq needs a reeducation camp in the worst possible way.