Iraqi Insurgency in its Own Words Posted by Heather Hurlburt

My friends over at the International Crisis Group have gotten some nice coverage (including this segment on Nightline) for their analysis of the websites and 'Net propaganda put out by Iraqi insurgent groups.  (Program director Rob Malley says ICG has an analyst who, under a pseudonym, is on the insurgents' listservs.  Nice work.)

But this is not a happy story.  I'll just reproduce the toplines of their conclusions and you can go read the rest:

The insurgency increasingly is dominated by a few large groups with sophisticated communications.

There has been gradula convergence around more unified practices and discourse, and predominantly Sunni Arab identity.

Despite recurring contrary reports, there is little sign of willingness by any significant insurgent element to join the political process or negotiate with the U.S.

The groups appear acutely aware of public opinion and increasingly mindful of their image.

The insurgents have yet to put forward a clear political program or long-term vision for Iraq.

The insurgency is increasingly confident of victory.

As I said, not much comfort for anybody there, "out now" or "stay the course."  A must-read.

Comments

[Cal]

The insurgency is not going to win. That's silly.

They're 20% of the population (at most) and they no longer have an air force, tanks, or artillery.

The insurgents don't have a "clear political program" because they don't have political power, and it's unlikely this will ever change.

Iran has won -- and the question now is whether we support Iran's victory in the interests of "stability," attack Iran and create total chaos, or leave and force Iran to pay part of the cost of this operation.

[J Thomas]

Cal, insurgents get to decide what victory means to them. If they think victory is Coalition forces leaving, they're quite likely to win.

And they can probably keep anybody else from controlling the areas they currently control, about 6 provinces with Baghdad. It makes sense that they'll be poor unless they can extract oil money or money from other provinces. But that's a problem for later, for after victory.

Compare it to the french resistance against the nazis. The french never did get that organised, their hope for eventual victory depended on foreign invasion or drastic military reverses elsewhere for the germans, and they had no clear political progrm -- a bunch of them were communists and a bunch weren't, etc. They were surely less than 20% of the population, but they did have the advantage that they came from all religions and ethnicities.

The iraq resistance is mostly sunnis, but that was our choice -- we chose to fight the sunni insurgents and concede territory to shia insurgents.

[Cal]

Agree with much of what you say, J. But if the Sunnis consider a rump state without oil to be a "victory" -- they're welcome to it. Given the fact that they're outnumbered 3 to 1 (4 to 1 if the Kurds join the Shias), and they're enemies have all the resources, it's unlikely the Sunnis could even keep Baghdad (which by some accounts has a Shia majority).

[J Thomas]

Cal, the old government wasn't a sunni government any more than the current US government is a government by fundamentalists or conservatives or even whites. They accepted shias like Allawi provided they were loyal. But there was a *tendency* for sunnis to prosper more under it. And they might very strongly prefer living under a government that doesn't have death squads for sunnis -- which they might now get with a shia-controlled government.

They get to decide their victory conditions, and the immediate victory for them would be to get US troops to stop invading their areas and bombing their towns and cities.

I can't really predict how the politics or fighting would go without us. We split the iraqis up into sunni/shia/kurd/other for our convenience. They split themselves differently. Maybe shia factions tend to be all shia but it isn't likely every shia cooperates with every other shia, or every sunni with every other sunni. All it takes is shia groups fighting each other sufficiently and sunnis have a chance to recover something. They might easily wind up controlling part of Baghdad. And if they wind up controlling water works and power stations then they'll need to be negotiated with. They'll probably never have much inside influence in Sadr City.

But I basicly don't know what's going on there, and I get the impression most US government people who deal with iraq are in the same boat. Thinking about iraq as sunni/shia/kurd is like thinking of america as liberal/conservative/libertarian. There's a sort of truth to it but not much predictive value.

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