ABSTRACT
A common American perception is that Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have been at each other’s throats for centuries, so nasty sectarian strife in Iraq was inevitable after the American takeover. Eyal Ben-Ari and his associates systematically observed Israeli military operations during the second Palestinian uprising – the Al-Aqsa Intifada – from September 2000 to March 2005. The American invasion of Iraq attracted a trickle of jihadists and foreign fighters, among them an experienced, hardcore Islamist from Jordan, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Small wars have been around for centuries – note America’s own Revolutionary War of the 1770s in which its colonies fought for independence from Great Britain. Al-Zarqawi’s “genius” was to envision how to exploit today’s interconnected world for his own nefarious purposes. In fact, the killing of al-Zarqawi did not end al-Qa’ida in Iraq's (AQI’s) threat or prevent the transformation of that small group later into something much larger and more malicious.
