Which Came First, the War in Iraq or the Terrorist Threat in Iraq?

^{Which Came First, War in Iraq or Terrorism in Iraq? (VOA News)}

The Iraq War and terrorism in Iraq have become one of the most convoluted chicken-and-egg problems in contemporary international affairs: did the United States, by going to war in Iraq, prevent or at least isolate terrorist aggression? Or did the war cause, or escalate, terrorism?

The question continues to be hashed out among American policy makers and the global public, usually in either/ or terms that go like this: either the primary cause of violence at this point is a civil war between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, or terrorism, in the form of Al Qaeda splinter groups, foreign jihadists and Iranian Revolutionary Guard meddling, is the real problem in the country.

American policy makers generally want to prioritize one of these explanations in order to make the case for either an American troop surge (to counter the terrorist threat) or an American withdrawal (because the civil war is not an American problem). Here, however, is an explanation that suggests they are linked, from a recent article by Danielle Pletka:

On the surface, Sunni death squads and Shiite gangsters appear to be tolerated by their respective communities because, alongside the ethnic cleansing, casual crime and occasional kidnapping, these men effectively act as neighborhood watch committees. But any serious review of the ample intelligence regarding these mini-armies reveals a tightly linked nexus with terrorism underpinned by Saudi money, Syrian fighters and Al-Qaeda. Towering above these meddlers, the Islamic Republic of Iran pours money and arms to Iraq's extra-legal militias.

Pletka works out of the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, and the intention of her article is to support troops' staying in Iraq. I'm interested in her article here, though, not to make the case for or against troops in Iraq, but because she usefully points out the complex, and inextricable relationships between the different parties in Iraq. It is no longer, if it ever was, possible to simply divide up good and bad guys, Iraqi actors—whether politically motivated or simply criminals—and "terrorists." This means, to begin with, that neither the lexicon of "civil war" nor that of good guys (Americans and Iraqi allies) vs. terrorists and their allies any longer contain or explain the unruly relations in Iraq.