Funny how we intercept a letter from al Qaeda’s #2 man echoing the Bush line that they-can’t-cut-and-run line.

In a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader says the U.S. “ran and left” in Vietnam and the jihadists must have a plan ready to fill the void if the Americans suddenly leave Iraq.

“Things may develop faster than we imagine,” Ayman al-Zawahri wrote in a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy.” We must be ready starting now.

In a wide-ranging letter spanning over 12 typed pages in the English translation, al-Zawahri also recommends a four-stage expansion of the war that would take the fighting to neighboring Muslim countries.

�It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established � in the heart of the Islamic world,� al-Zawahri writes.

The letter lays out his long-term plan: expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority and take the war to Iraq�s secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Nevertheless, the letter lays out the whole caliphate argument Bush featured in his recent speech, and the release of this letter is obviously timed in connection. The purpose of its release is obvious � to support the Bush administration�s argument that they must stay in Iraq, or risk turning it over to al Qaeda. Since al Qaeda is so keen for US to go, obviously US must stay in Iraq, right?

The letter, captured in Iraq, has been supposedly authenticated. I just wonder whether they were meant to find it.