Al-Qaeda in Iraq has already taken advantage of this situation through its

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has already taken advantage of this situation through its front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, which deployed combat teams in Fallujah last month that targeted Iraqi army positions and killed several soldiers. The jihadists’ black flags have appeared at Sunni protests and memorial ceremonies for the fallen. The group is back in the havens it held in 2006. If Maliki does not allow proper Sunni representation in government, al-Qaeda will gain greater popular tolerance and foreign support. Over the past year, the situation in Iraq has become explosive while sectarian sentiment and armed violence in neighboring nations have escalated dramatically. Americans have become accustomed to watching Iraq approach the precipice and draw back. But circumstances have changed with the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and Maliki’s year-long efforts to intimidate his opponents through political, judicial and military maneuvers. If Maliki does not accept many of the protesters’ reasonable demands and allow meaningful Sunni participation in government, prospects for stopping Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict are grim. Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War. Frederick W. Kagan is director of the Critical Threats Project and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Article 8. The American Spectator Islam and Islamism in the Modern World An interview with Daniel Pipes (By Tom Bethell) February 2013 -- Daniel Pipes, one of our leading experts on Islam, established the Middle East Forum and became its head in 1994. He was born in 1949 and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Richard Pipes, was a professor of Russian history, now emeritus, at Harvard. Daniel studied Arabic and Islamic history and lived in Cairo for HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027119