Terrorism's frenemies could prove our worst enemy
Welcome to part three of my series on the future of al-Qaida: Today's Los Angeles Daily News column focuses on al-Qaida in Iraq's spats with Iran, and how that shouldn't dampen long-term love -- and cooperation -- between the frenemies:
"'We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shia government and to stop direct and indirect intervention . ... Otherwise a severe war is waiting for you,' al-Qaida in Iraq's Abu Omar al-Baghdadi warned in an audiotape released July 8.
When anyone suggests that al-Qaida and Iran could be partners in crime, the theory is usually met with skepticism. All we've seen in Iraq is sectarian bloodshed, after all, and the Shiite Islamic Republic has its own ideas about creating a clone next door.
But when we brush off the plausibility of these nefarious entities uniting in pursuit of common goals - our destruction, Israel's destruction, a world under Islamic law - we risk missing the intricacies and subtle relationships that spin a tangled web among Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and al-Qaida and its affiliates.
Bashar Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayman al-Zawahri: together at last. Any ideological or political rifts seem to matter less than the common ground of these bombastic leaders..."
And for the package deal, remember the previous two segments:
PART I: Extremism in Pakistan flourishes under Musharraf's containment policy (Wrote one reader: "This is the first accurate assessment of Musharraf
that I've seen in the media.")
PART II: Has al-Qaida found a hospitable host in Hamas?
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