Islam Consuming Itself

"It is important to recognize that (al-Qaeda) cannot be decisively defeated in Anbar. The (Iraqi military) presence in Anbar is therefore likely to be long-term, which increases the opportunities for (al Qaeda) to exert control elsewhere in Iraq."
Ahmed Ali, Iraq researcher, Institute for the Study of War, Washington

The caution is that with the regime anxiously focusing its attention on Anbar province, its troop strength elsewhere will be depleted, creating opportunities for al-Qaeda militias to move elsewhere where such opportunities arise, conducting a multi-front war zone which the straitened forces of the Iraqi military will be incapable of effectively countering.

The United States has effectively washed its hands of Iraq. Enough sacrifices in an attempt to 'normalize' Iraq, to guide it toward moderation. The very thought of moderation in relation to the sizzling animus between the Islamist sects is a flight from reality. And this American administration is weary of the cost, in time and energy, in treasury and human life in its attempts to mentor a society, a culture and a religious ideological divide that it can neither understand nor motivate toward reason.

Iraq is now to be left to the Iraqis to sort out. They must themselves deal with the corrosive viciousness of their hatred toward one another. Iraqis they may be, but the tribal-religious-clan divisions between Shia and Sunni are so abraded and actively poisonous that it is clear enough that outside intervention will never bridge those horrendous gaps in human charity toward one another.

Iran stands prepared to aid their Shia brethren who now reign supreme in administering the affairs of government in a divided Iraq. It is a geography that will eventually split into three distinct portions. The Kurds of Iraq more than deserve their own sovereign state, one that will eventually result in inviting Turkey and Syria to surrender their borders to slices to be incorporated into a greater oil-wealthy Kurdistan.

And the chasms that exist between Sunni and Shia will and must, it would seem, result in Iraqi Sunnis owning their own geography and the oil riches that reside therein. None of this can be achieved without more conflict, and more yet of the slaughters that have plagued the country in paroxysms of collective psychotic revenge one upon the other. A situation that appears to be a speciality in most Arab and Muslim countries episodically.

Iraq's avalanche of woes is a reflection of Syria's. And the Iraqi al-Qaeda militias are as determined there as they are in Syria to further their plans for conquest, to convert the Sunni geography of the country completely to a caliphate where the true reflection of Islamic values will be mirrored and continue to spread through ongoing waves of conquest, more familiarly identified as jihad, an obligation of all true Muslims. Saudi Arabia is there to aid the Sunnis in their Salafist faith.

Tehran stands at the ready to support Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's regime, and to secure for Shia Islam that which he will be enabled to hold, exclusive of Kurdistan and the Sunni-dominated areas bordering Syria. The formidable savagery of the Sunni Islamists will ensure, in the final analysis, that their dominion will spread, and there will never be any end of jostling between the two sects of a religion that its followers insist is one of peace.