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Source: http://washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=962
Iran's Militia Mayhem
[New York Daily News/Washington Institute for Near East Policy] David Makovsky - Iran has honed a strategy that, if seen to succeed, could replicate itself all across the Arab world. Today in the Mideast, there are three places where militias operate freely within states: Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. In all three cases, the militias receive political, economic, and military backing from Iran. Iran gives at least $100 million annually, plus an estimated 11,000 missiles, to Hizballah. It provides Iraq's Mahdi militia and others with Iranian explosives. It even aids Hamas, which is Sunni and does not share Iran's Shiism. If Hizballah emerges from this conflict emboldened, it is a safe bet that Iran will set out to make still more militia mayhem - strengthening homegrown radical Arab groups with the potential to destabilize governments from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.