That the level of violence in Iraq is very high cannot be gainsaid. While most of the violence today is Iraqi-on-Iraqi (mainly Shia and Sunni death squads fighting and revenge killings), coalition and Iraqi authorities have known for years that the violence has been instigated and propped up by foreign powers, mainly Iran and Syria. Iran arms and trains Iraqi Shia militias and Syria does the same for Sunni militias. Curiously, Sunni Syria and Shia Iran are partners in fomenting anti-Israel violence by Hamas and Hezbollah and also support the mainly Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq.

Strategy Page reports that (finally) Iraqi officials are “being less diplomatic in accusing neighboring countries of backing the violence inside Iraq.”

The Sunni countries (especially Syria) allow terrorists to slip personnel, money and weapons across the border. This supports continued Sunni Arab terrorism by groups that either work for establishing an Sunni Islamic Republic, or protecting Saddam’s henchmen from retribution. Iran supports radical Shia militias, in the hope of establishing a Shia Islamic Republic, but also to sustain the violence against Sunni Arabs who worked for Saddam. This revenge against Saddam, and his followers, is a big deal in Iran, even among political moderates. There is hardly a family in Iran that did not lose someone during the 1980s war with Iraq. Saddam and his [Sunni-dominated] Baath Party have long been held personally responsible for the conflict.

And forreign jihadis are pouring into Iraq, mainly Sunnis from “Algeria, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in that order.” Those nations see this as a win-win situation. It enables them to militarily oppose the United States and prevent or inhibit democracy in Iraq without overtly dirtying their hands. Even better,

Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Syria are, in effect, exporting Islamic radicals who were defeated in their own country. The foreigners are considered cannon fodder by the Sunni terrorist groups in Iraq, and few of the foreign volunteers last long enough to return home with useful terrorist skills. Moreover, going back to places like Algeria or Syria to carry out Islamic terrorist activities is suicidal. Both of these countries have populations, and police forces, that are hostile to Islamic terrorism, and able to stamp it out if any more Islamic radicalism shows up.

In effect, these countries export their Islamist radicals to Iraq and use the United States and the Iraqi Security Forces to carry out antiterrorism on their behalf. At the same time they fight the United States. Yet this seems a very gambling policy from their own perspective. If the insurgencies in Iraq succeed in driving the US out before at least a semi-stable and effective government is emplaced there (not an impossible potentiality, considering America’s domestic political scene), then Islamists will take the credit. Remember, Osama bin Laden claimed that the cause of the Soviet Union’s ignominious withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan in 1989 was because of the power of pure Islamic faith in the mujahidin opposing them. Such an outcome in Iraq would only embolden the Islamist parties in other Muslim countries, especially the ones outsourcing their anti-Islamist fighting to the United States by sending jihadis to Iraq. In the short term it may seem sensible, but the long-term repercussions might be very unfortunate for them.