In a web video released Monday, the Obama campaign celebrated the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. “As your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I’m proud to finally say these two words, and I know your families agree – welcome home. Welcome home,” Obama says in a clip from a speech he gave at Fort Bragg in December. The president repeats that phrase again for dramatic effect, “Welcome home.”

Also on Monday, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) launched a lethal series of attacks – the largest coordinated assault by the group in some time. More than 100 Iraqis were killed in what the New York Times rightly calls an “ambitiously staged sequence of 40 attacks that covered a broad area of the country.” AQI is gaining ground once again, both in Iraq and in Syria, where a new front for jihad has opened up for al Qaeda and affiliated parties.