Iraq’s al Qaeda Nightmare Is Back

Zarqawism Lives: Iraq’s al Qaeda Nightmare Is Back -- Bruce Riedel, Daily Beast

The misguided war in Iraq may have finished for Americans, but its violent backlash is far from over. Bruce Riedel on how decapitation just can’t kill al Qaeda.

A rising wave of extreme anti-Shia sectarian violence is sweeping Iraq. Hundreds have died in terror attacks this summer. The mass slaughter of Shia at the hands of al Qaeda threatens to drag the country back to civil war. Worse, al Qaeda in Iraq has now exported its violence to Syria, and Lebanon is not far behind. Not since the Saudi and Wahhabi sack of Najaf and Kerbala in 1806 has sectarian violence in the Middle East been this extreme.

The origins of this wave of extreme sectarianism are many, and Iraq’s Shia government cannot escape much of the responsibility for allowing it to develop. Prime Minister Maliki’s government encouraged Shia identity and sectarian animosity. Sunni Arabs have been treated poorly. Iran has encouraged Maliki’s sectarian policies at home. The Iranian and Hezbollah intervention in Syria this spring has exacerbated the tensions to the boiling point.

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Update: Iraq's deadliest month: Who's behind the bloodshed? -- Arwa Damon, CNN

My Comment: Warfare and conflict has been the norm in this part of the world for centuries .... and I do not see the situation changing at anytime in the future.