Does Anbar Need Reevaluating?
First there’s this…
From the BBC:
Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, 37, led what was known as the “Anbar Awakening”, an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
US President George Bush met and endorsed the sheikh last week in Iraq.
The White House, which has held up the movement in Anbar province as an example for the rest of Iraq, condemned his assassination as “an outrage”.
However that meeting may have actually been causal in his assassination. Over at The American Prospect Marc Lynch writes:
While Americans celebrate their cordial relations with certain tribal shaykhs, the insurgency’s leaders publicly fumed that the fruits of their victory might be snatched by undeserving interlopers. The widely disseminated pictures of President Bush shaking hands with Sattar Abu Risha, the epitome of such illegitimate bon vivantes, were likely his death warrant.
Additionally he goes on to point out that while here Abdul Sattar Abu Rish claims to have told W “that his people had achieved in four months what the American military could not achieve in four years.” and that Abu Rish is not alone in speaking or seeing the situation in Anbar this way:
In their literature and public rhetoric, the Sunni insurgency has already defeated the American occupation — which is why the Americans stopped fighting them and came to them for help in fighting al-Qaeda. One discovers virtually nothing in this literature of the American conceit that our forces wore them out or forced them to come to the table.
If Lynch is speaking truly then what we’ve been seeing in Anbar is a short term gain that will ultimately prove to have a high long term cost. That is, of course, provided that the US military leaders aren’t aware of that. So ultimately the real questions to ask are “Who is using who?” and “Who is spinning the real situation to their people?”. I’m hoping that the answers to those questions are simply “Us” and “Them” but the simple fact of the matter is, that in order to find out, all we can do is wait and to quote Tom Petty, “The waiting is the hardest part.”.
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Interesting post. Peeling back the layers of the Middle Eastern political onion is a continuously frustrating exercise.
There are a few problems here.Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed by Al-Qaeda because Al-Qaeda cannot afford to have Iraqis helping the Americans. The examples of their threatening anyone who helps the Americans are widespread. They rule by fear because they need to control a large population with a relatively small physical presence. The assassination should be no surprise to anyone who has followed the battle for Iraqi loyalties.Then we hear, as if to undermine the progress made through the surge, that Abdul's people had accomplished in four months what America couldn't in four years. What a perfect example of people who are against the war ignoring the lessons of it. There is not an American general who believes we can bully 28 million Iraqi people into civility with 160,000 troops. We can't win this war militarily - haven't we been hearing this from Dems and our generals alike? So why is it surprising that we finally used the help of those who see us as occupiers? The story here is not just that Sunnis and Shiites are helping Americans, it's that Sunnis and Shiites have turned on Al-Qaeda - and that's the only way we are ever going to be able to leave Iraq a somewhat peaceful country - when Iraqis are fighting the terrorists that have made their country a battleground.Then - we're supposed to be surprised that in the Sunni insurgency literature and public rhetoric we find boasts of having defeated the Americans. Shocking. Does Lynch not understand that one day the Americans will leave and that everyone in any position of power is maneuvering for that day? Why would a Sunni insurgency say anything but that their military and intellectual prowess had defeated the Americans?And why do Americans care what they say - is not the point here to get Iraqis to stop killing each other and start killing Al-Qaeda so we can leave? I'll ignore the insult meant to demean the intelligence of our military leaders - but as to whether anyone is spinning the news - what do the numbers tell us? Deaths are down because we've changed our strategy and because Iraqis have decided life under Al-Qaeda was worse than life under occupation. Once life settles down and the population turns away from the gun to solve political/sectarian problems, then we're outta there.And I pray that day comes soon.