The violence in Iraq is at an all time high. After a brief lull in the immediate aftermath of the 30 January elections in Iraq, insurgency has once again raised its head with a vengeance, dashing US hopes of political stability in Iraq. In the two weeks since the new Iraqi cabinet was formed, more than 400 Iraqis have been slaughtered in car bombings and other bloody attacks, a pace as relentless and heartless as any since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years ago. The attacks, mostly on Iraqi civilians, continue in a relentless wave of violence that the new government of Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, says it is determined to control but seems powerless to stop. In fact, the situation is so bad that the Prime Minster was forced to extend an emergency law for another 30 days that allows the government to impose curfews and take other steps to preserve law and order.

There seem to be several reasons for this rise in insurgency. The isolation felt by the Iraqi Sunnis is probably the most important of these factors. The Sunnis, who were ruling Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime, were suddenly turned into weak and powerless minorities by the US invasion. Moreover, by deciding to boycott Iraq's elections, they made their political isolation complete. And it is this perception of being isolated from political mainstream in Iraq that has manifested itself in rising insurgent activities in the Sunni triangle. The Bush Administration is increasingly concerned about the Iraqi government's failure to include enough participation by Sunni Muslims and has stepped up its appeal to broaden their role in the government or risk driving moderate Sunnis into the arms of insurgents. Despite this, only two members of the 55-member committee set up to write Iraq's permanent constitution are Sunni Arabs who constitute 20 percent of Iraq's population.

The slow pace of government formation in Iraq also played into the hands of the disaffected insurgents. The government formation took an inordinate amount of time because of the complex bargaining and negotiations that went into it to satisfy all the political groups and interests. In fact, the US had to cajole the Iraqi government to move faster in its filling up of various cabinet posts and this has still not been fully accomplished. This uncertainty regarding the future shape of the government also gave insurgents an opening that they have used to maximum effect. In the meantime, the influx of foreign fighters and members of al Qaeda has also helped in sustaining the insurgency in Iraq.

The current phase of insurgency in Iraq is being spearheaded by several different groups of people with different motivations and long-term objectives but who share tactics so as to create a sense of instability in Iraq. This includes not only die-hard members of the Baath party and pro-al Qaeda Islamist militants but also those Iraqis who were fired from their jobs in the military and other government institutions for being members of the Baath party but who did not profess any real loyalty for Saddam Hussein's regime. However, at its core, this insurgency is being guided by an alliance between the die-hard Baathists and the network of terrorists under the command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

There are also reports of Syria being the base of operations for foreign fighters and of Syrian militias openly operating in the Sunni triangle. Most of the suicide bombings in Iraq are apparently being undertaken by the foreign fighters. The US military is currently undertaking a 1000-men-strong offensive in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border to root out insurgents who had been enjoying a safe haven in this region. Today, Iraq is functioning as virtually three separate political entities with the Kurdish-north and largely Shiite-south relatively stable and peaceful. Most of the insurgent activities are located in the center of Iraq, the Sunni triangle, which has put the future of entire Iraq at stake. The result of this mayhem is an Iraq in which about 50 percent of population remains unemployed and only a slightly greater percentage have access to clean drinking water.

The US, till a few months back, was optimistic that the situation in Iraq was returning to normal and hopes were rising for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq relatively soon. Those hopes have faded now as two years after the war and more than three months after national elections that appeared to be a referendum in favor of peace, the violent insurgents remain an unyielding stumbling block in the path to a new Iraq.