Kerry’s central argument today is that the war in Iraq was “a profound diversion” from the war on terrorism.

That’s interesting because what else happened today? An American was beheaded in Iraq — by terrorists, more specifically by members of a terrorist group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi, of course, is a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and his ideology is nearly identical to bin Laden’s.

Kerry also said today that “Iraq is becoming a sanctuary for a new generation of terrorists.”

But Zarqawi is hardly an Islamist Gen-Xer. He fought against the U.S. in Afghanistan before moving to Iraq where he was the guest of Saddam Hussein. And while enjoying his refuge in Iraq, he masterminded acts of terrorism, including – to take just one example — the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan.

In other words, Iraq is a front – the most deadly front – in the War on Terrorism which is really a war against the most vicious forms of contemporary totalitarianism, Islamo-fascism (e.g. Ba’athism) and radical Islamism.