Monday, March 06, 2006
Countervailing force
At an extremely simple level, we want the Shiites to countervail al Qaeda, and the Sunnis to have sufficient power in the new government that Iran does not turn Iraq into a Finlandized client. In this regard, the Arab regimes of the Gulf are very much on our side. Iran also needs stability in Iraq -- instability will just agitate its Arab and Kurdish minorities, who are already restive -- but it wants a government sufficiently under its influence that it will ask the Americans to leave (or so minimize their presence and influence that Iran does not have to worry about American military operations from the west). I touched on some of these themes last week toward the end of a post on the matter of foreign fighters in Iraq.
Neither the administration or the mainstream media has done a great job of explaining this complexity to the public. The Los Angeles Times, however, did publish an interesting article yesterday that suggests that Iraq's Sunnis are increasingly concerned about an American withdrawal. They do not, quite simply, want to be left to the tender mercies of a Shia-dominated regime, especially in the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque. The Sunnis are, in short, coming around to an argument that we and others have been making for a long time -- that in any civil war with the Shiites and the Kurds, they will lose, and lose big time.
The question, then, is what this will mean for the war on al Qaeda. If the Sunnis want us to stay, perhaps we will agree to do so in return for a quid pro quo -- bring us al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which can survive only with the cooperation of Iraq's Sunnis, and we will stay with sufficient force to influence the formation and performance of the new government. Alternatively, the Sunnis might conclude that more terrorism is the best way to pin us down in Iraq so that we may forever serve as their protectors. Either way, we will be looking for a result that (i) denies al Qaeda the military and propaganda victory that it has been looking for in Iraq, (ii) earns the support of the Sunni regimes in the region so that they do not destabilize Iraq at their next opportunity, and (iii) gives sufficient voice to Iraqi Arab nationalism (whether Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish) that Iran will not be able to operate in Iraq uncontested.
Comments?
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Mar 06, 11:28:00 AM:
If you were a Sunni and following the meme of the Dems and their media minions, it would be difficult to convince yourself that getting rid of AQ would be to your benefit.
You would be carefully watching the midterm elections and not making any moves until you knew the lay of the land for 2007 and 2008.
There was great wisdom is
"politics stops at the water's edge" but the left has destroyed that.
A peaceful Iraq would see a faster redeployment of our military, IMHO.
What's a Sunni to do?
The situation with Iran can change everything. If an outright confrontation begins, the Sunnis must then
clean out the AQ and assist with finding Iranian agents working in Iraq.
May we all pray for our magnificent military who are in harms way.
By 
sunguh5307, at
Mon Mar 06, 01:52:00 PM:
That sounds great. I just hope there is truth to it and our faith is not misplaced. Because where I'm standing it doesn't look like the Sunni's are planning to cooperate any time soon.
If we were to give our government that kind of credit, there would be more sophisticated Psyops and they would go into Ramadi like they did Fallujah. Instead we have this waiting game...
We'll soon see, and maybe this will become clearer in the next Congressional elections.
By ScurvyOaks, at
Mon Mar 06, 03:04:00 PM:
Great post. If the Sunnis perceive that the American public is becoming increasingly fatigued by the continuing loss of American lives, they have to factor in the risk of a relatively sudden U.S. departure in the face of the insurgency. So maybe the Sunnis' optimal strategic path is to help shut down the insurgency, but to do so fairly gradually. In that scenario, we don't bolt because (i) we can see real progress and (ii) the job isn't finished.
By Cassandra, at
Mon Mar 06, 09:06:00 PM:
That makes the BBC poll that shows overwhelming Iranian support for a continued US presence in Iraq, given Iraqi support for such a presence, even *more* interesting, n'est pas cheries?
