Amir Taheri sees a whirling dervish barreling through Iraq, as a passel of bad guys struggle for the right to terrorize:

The three main groups involved in the power struggle are organized along tribal and clan lines covered by a thin veneer of Baathist ideology.

What is possibly the largest group is led by Colonel Hani Abdul-Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikriti, a former head of the Secret Services Organization (SSO) and a cousin of Saddam. Hani and his younger brother Rafi are reportedly trying to maintain the cohesion of what is left of the Tikriti clan that provided Saddam with his principal support base for 30 years. Although both brothers feature in the deck of cards issued by the U.S.-led Coalition, there are indications that they are still able to operate with some freedom within the so-called "Sunni Triangle." Their group includes Sabaawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a half brother of Saddam, and Lt. General Tahir Dalil Harboush, a Soviet-trained expert in intelligence.

...The nominal head of the second group is Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who was number-two in Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). This group has absorbed the remnants of the Baath party's secret military organization, of which Duri was leader since 1986. It is also possible that some members of the Fedayeen Saddam organization, led by the deposed dictator's eldest son, the late Uday Hussein, have rallied to the group.

...The third group could be described as the civilian wing of the insurgency and presents itself as "the true Baath." It is led by Muhsin Khudhair al-Khafji who has just declared himself president of the Iraqi section of the pan-Arab Socialist Baath party.

Back in July, when Udai and Qusai went into permanent retirement, I thought a disintegration of order would follow:

With yesterday's deaths, the Ba'athist component of disorder in Iraq will be without the venerable bloodline, and should crumble in a month or two. Some members will try to vanish; some will surrender; some may struggle in vain for position on a now-dead hierarchy, perhaps drawing undue attention to themselves; some may take a vertical transfer downward, join the criminal elements of the country's unrest now or else wait for the Iraqi livelihood to stabilize and then try their hand at organized crime.

But I was assuming that Saddam was dead or incapacitated; alive, his presence must have served well as a keystone for insurgency's power structure. With him removed from the scene, something like what I described may well be finally occurring. Taheri also accounts for other parties to mayhem:

The situation is further complicated by the presence of half a dozen other groups, some of them consisting almost entirely of non-Iraqi Islamist militants, who have their own agendas and pursue their own strategies.

The largest of these groups is known as Ansar al-Sunnah (Victorious Soldiers of Tradition) and is close to the religious leaders in Fallujah and Baaquba.

Another group is known as Lajnat al-Iman (the Committee of the Faith) which has a presence in Baghdad and Mosul. Both include non-Iraqi militants and have contacts with pan-Islamist movements in other Arab countries, notably Algeria and Saudi Arabia.

...Also operating in the context of the instability that prevails in the Sunni Triangle are mafia-style groups that once controlled the black market created by United Nations sanctions. These groups have absorbed some of the criminals who Saddam released from prison on the eve of his own downfall. These gangs pursue no particular political agenda and switch alliances from one former Ba'athist outfit to another.

They'll blend, cooperate, and fight amongst eachother - but no matter what they do, these ranks will threaten stability inside Iraq. Not to worry, says Taheri:

With Saddam in the can, the situation in Iraq may get more complicated, at least for a while. The idea is to fasten seatbelts for the bumpy road ahead. With the head of the snake chopped off the rest of it will also be destroyed. What is needed is patience and resolve.

Only a scholar like Taheri can write up a list of scoundrels like this one and remain steadfast - and I think his unworried example is a good one to follow.