The Looming Confrontation

By Douglas Farah

The panorama of Islamist violence and activism that is surging in several places in the world is not encouraging:

The deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where al Qaeda threatens to retaliate if the Lebanese army attacks Fatah al Islam in the refugee camp; the emergence itself of Fatah al Islam, a Sunni/Salafist group operational in Lebanon;

Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, re-emerges after months of silence, to give a fiery sermon denouncing the United States and fanning the flames of Shi'ite violence.

In the Palestinian territories, Hamas is again encouraging suicide bombings in Israel and launching daily missile attacks, while waging a parallel war against the secular Fatah government.

In Afghanistan, a new al Qaeda leader is named, perhaps signaling a new version of the core al Qaeda leadership that is emerging (what Peter Bergen would call al Qaeda 3.0)

There is one interesting thing to remember in this panorama, however. Ultimately, as both Shi'ite and Sunni groups grow more confident in their ability to impose a solution by force, their desire to kill each other will likely come to the fore, pitting them against each other and inflicting more damage than the United States could ever hope to do. My full blog is here.

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