Iraq has become a playground for multiple forces with multiple interests and these forces are thriving on a war-stricken country, destroying it at their will in order to establish democracy.



The U.S. until now has done nothing significant in Iraq besides dethroning the president Saddam Hussein. Now when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, the U.S. is now in a enthusiastic mood to celebrate this achievement. However, their enthusiasm do not seem to last longer.



Having Zarqawi dead does not have far reaching implications in Iraq now; if Zarqawi would have been killed a year back, it might have marked the impact in the country. This time around, ethnic strife has engulfed the entire country and the strife is more or less driven by ideology and hence it does not need a face or a leader to keep their struggle continued. However, the Jordan born Zarqawi was important because he was effectively instrumental in bringing funds and in recruiting foreigner for their so-called Jihad.



Even then, the truth is, Zarqawi and the foreigner Jihadis never exceeded ten percent of the total force involved in the insurgency in Iraq. The staunch Sunni no doubt had become the face of Al-Qaida but his hatred and actions towards Shiite was being debated and condemned within the Al-Qaida it self. Al-zawahiri, second in line in Al-Qaida had written to Zarqawi last summer that his conduct towards Shiite may result in eroding mass support for the organization.



The immediate impact probably would not be felt at the upper level because the death of Zarqawi would help Sunni insurgents to split into fragments and may spurt fresh spell of Shiite-Sunni killings. There may be an opening of fresh violence as the foreign fighters and the Sunni groups would definitely try to assert that their backbone is still there and not broken.



On the other hand, the U.S. is busy in rejoicing the death of Zarqawi, considering it a major breakthrough. However, it is a fact that the death of Zarqawi hasn’t left the Al-Qaida resistance in the region completeless leaderless. Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi and al-Masri are few world famous names from Al-Qaida network operating in Iraq and are able to take Iraq more effectively than Zarqawi.



Zaerqawi’s dictatorial style of functioning was not well received by many insurgents group in Iraq and his removal from the scene would help reconciliation between Al-Qaida in Iraq and Iraqi resistance group.



The death of Zarqawi may give U.S. momentary relief in Iraq since Zarqawi was just another face of terrorism. In fact, in Iraq ethnic strife has succeeded insurgency and it is driven by beliefs.