This article is okay, but it misses much of the context. For example it says: "Just as Al Qaeda in Iraq has ostensibly been fighting to free Baghdad from what

This article is okay, but it misses much of the context. For example it says: "Just as Al Qaeda in Iraq has ostensibly been fighting to free Baghdad from what it calls heretical “Persian”—read “Shia”—domination, the Nusrah Front today fights to free Syria from the supposedly heretical rule of the nominally Shia Alawite regime of Bashar al Assad." But then later posits: "If Al Qaeda/Nusrah can establish a base in Jordan, Saudi Arabia will find itself threatened by Al Qaeda franchises on both north and south that will be well-positioned to resume the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s core goal of toppling the Saudi monarchy and “liberating” the holy cities of Mecca and Medina." Al Qaeda is and has been fighting a pan-Islamist fight to extricate foreign influence - what it sees as continued colonialism - from the Arab World. Interestingly, both the Ba-athists (Shia governments of Syria and Iraq) and Al Qaeda claim to be fighting against the forces of foreign manipulation. The Ba-athists approach it from a Pan-Arab manner rather than Pan-Islamist, but have histories of Western support (indeed the Alawites in Syria were originally militarily conceived by the French and the prior Sunni regime in Iraq conceived by the British) that can spoil their claim to independence. The article also misses the regional proxy war aspect, where Gulf Countries and the United States have been arming proxy groups to achieve geostrategic ends, such as the establishment of energy pipelines and determining the future of Mediterranean access.