Why Does al-Qaeda Keep Coming up in the Current Lebanon Coverage?

As the Lebanese army continues its assault on the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon in an attempt to root out members of the militant group Fatah (or Fath) al-Islam, I can't help but reflect on this observation from Juan Cole:

Al-Qaeda, at least as a vague franchise, still exists, and remains a major threat to the US. That is, however, mostly because opportunistic forces on the American Right would use any further attacks on the US to abrogate more of our constitutional rights. At the moment, al-Qaeda's biggest targets are other Muslims.

The emphasis is mine. Al-Qaeda, according to Cole, is currently more focused on attacking other Muslims, whom they see as "collaborators" with the U.S. and western European nations, than on actually attacking U.S. or western European targets (the notable exception, as I see it, being U.S. or Coalition troops in Iraq).

CNN reports that Fatah al-Islam is considered by some Lebanese officials to have ties to al-Qaeda, although it should be noted that al-Qaeda, in this sense, seems more a label of convenience referring to a group of radical Sunni fundamentalists--Cole refers to the Salafi Jihadi movement--rather than a specific indication that al-Qaeda, as it existed in 2001, has anything to do with Fatah al-Islam or the small group of fighters currently entrenched in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.

What does it all mean? I sure don't know, but can't help but notice that the Lebanese army is engaged in heavy fighting with a band of pro-Syrian extremists effectively hiding behind Palestinian refugees; that the al-Qaeda name keeps being bandied about by the U.S. media as if it means something; and that there are, to my knowledge, no U.S. or European targets involved in the confrontation.

So who stands to gain when the al-Qaeda name is dropped into the newscast? I'm just wondering.

UPDATE: A U.N. aid convoy has been hit in the fighting. That, and White House spokesman Tony Snow suggests that Syria may play a role in all this. From the AP:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Fatah Islam militants want to disrupt the nation's security and distract international attention from a U.N. effort to establish a special tribunal try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut.

The United States "will not tolerate attmpts by Syria, terrorist groups or any others to delay or derail Lebanon's efforts to solidify its sovereignty or seek justice in the Hariri case," Snow said.

AQI: A Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

Kevin Drum takes on Andrew McCarthy in a recent post at Washington Monthly. In a nutshell, Kevin says that Andrew is crazy and wasting our time by suggesting that Dems know that the best way to defeat al-Qaeda is to stay in Iraq and fight the bad guys there. For the most part I agree with Kevin, although I take issue with this nugget:

In fact, there's a dirty little secret of the Iraq war that neither party is eager to acknowledge publicly: namely that the fastest way to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is probably for us to leave and let the Iraqis do it themselves. Republicans don't want to acknowledge this for the obvious reason: they want to stay in Iraq and this doesn't help their cause.

(emphasis mine)

I'm not so quick to agree that Republicans, as a group, want to stay in Iraq. It sounds like the average Republican joe these days is ready to see the U.S. get out of Iraq. Republican politicians simply want to stay in power, and as Iraq drags on--indeed, grows bleaker by the day--they don't know how to do that now without doubling down on the bet and hoping to see this thing through to some sort of less-than-politically-disastrous outcome.

McCarthy suggests that Republicans ought to hit the American public over the head with the reminder that Dems criticize the Bush administration for not pursuing al-Qaeda aggressively enough after 9/11, yet lo and behold here we are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq exactly like the Dems say we should. Just one problem with this: AQI flourishes to the extent that it does precisely because of the vacuum left behind after our "mission" was "accomplished" four years ago. The Bush administration did all it could to link al-Qaeda to Iraq, and now that prophecy has fulfilled itself.