Goodbye Iraq, Hello Pakistan

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said last week there is some intelligence that Al Qaeda is shifting forces from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan. That would continue a larger trend: the departure of foreign fighters. The Pentagon says that in early 2007, at the peak of foreign terror in Iraq, foreign fighters made up more than 10 percent of the insurgency and were flowing into the country at a rate of 110 a month. Now that number is 40 a month. Many foreigners are heading for havens on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The result is less violence in Iraq. A West Point study shows that in early 2007 nine of 10 suicide bombers came from foreign states. They were striking 27 times a month. By this May that number was down to six in Iraq, according to the Brookings Institution. But the bloodshed was rising in Afghanistan.