Whither they goest?

JunkYardBlog does some nice thinking in a post about where Zarqawi and his zany band of Al Qaedians might go next if and when they are driven out of Iraq.

Mr. Preston outlines somes logical reasoning that has Al Qaeda ending up bunking with the Palestinians.

Al Qaeda will probably soon be driven out of Iraq, if not entirely then at least functionally. As Strategy Page reports (via InstaPundit), the standing-up Iraqi army and Coalition forces have taken away most of al Qaeda's refuges in Iraq. If the Sunnis get with the democratic program and help turn Qaeda terrorists out their territories, the bad guys will have little to do but run to the border areas and probably into other states. Which states, though?

Syria is an obvious candidate, but its present nervousness and the possibility of real international approbrium stemming from the Hariri assination would seem to make Syria a wobbly host. Assad might just curry international favor by snatching up whatever major Qaeda figures show up in lands he controls and turn them over to the US or UN.

Iran is the next likely host. In fact, it probably already hosts senior Qaeda leadership. But there's only so much functional value to staying inside Iran if you're a bloodthirsty operative like Zarqawi. Whom would the terrorists attack--student protestors? From Iran, Zarqawi and his accolytes could mount attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but that's of limited value as well as both are lost to al Qaeda for the foreseeable future, and both are quite hostile to the terrorists from the top of their governments.

I think the Zarqawi brigades are most likely to show up where they believe they'll be able to do some lasting good, from their point of view. If they're driven out of Iraq, they'll end up in Gaza working with Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. From there they will be able to attack Isreal and Jordan easily enough, they could keep Egypt under close watch and they won't be far from Iraq should they see the need to mount attacks there. And the US won't dare mount any direct attacks within any Palestinian territory. The international outcry against any American attack would be tremendous, no matter the intentions or the results. Thus, Yasser Arafat's creation will probably become Zarqawi's next base of operations.