Anbar tribes turn against al Qaeda

Hearts and minds in Ramadi

Excerpt:

While the world's attention has been focused on Baghdad's slide into sectarian warfare, something remarkable has been happening in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 inhabitants that al-Qaeda and its Iraqi allies have controlled since mid-2004 and would like to make the capital of their cherished Islamic caliphate.

A power struggle has erupted: al-Qaeda's reign of terror is being challenged. Sheikh Sittar and many of his fellow tribal leaders have cast their lot with the once-reviled US military. They are persuading hundreds of their followers to sign up for the previously defunct Iraqi police. American troops are moving into a city that was, until recently, a virtual no-go area. A battle is raging for the allegiance of Ramadi's battered and terrified citizens and the outcome could have far-reaching consequences.

Ramadi has been the insurgency's stronghold for the past two years. It is the conduit for weapons and foreign fighters arriving from Syria and Saudi Arabia. To reclaim it would deal a severe blow to the insurgency throughout the Sunni triangle and counter mounting criticism of the war back in America.

Sheikh Sittar and US commanders believe that the tide is turning in their favour. 'Most of the people are now convinced that coalition forces are friends, and that the enemy is al-Qaeda,' the 35-year-old Sheikh claimed in his first face-to-face interview with a Western newspaper.

Bill Roggio has more

Excerpt:


The Anbar tribes' turn against al-Qaeda has developed significantly since the end of the Anbar Campaign late last year, which swept al-Qaeda and the insurgency from the major towns and cities west of Ramadi. Over the past year, the majority of the tribes have denounced al-Qaeda and formed alliances with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces operating in the region. Numerous 'foreign fighters' have been killed or captured by the tribes. The tribes are working to restore order, and are providing recruits for the police and Army, despite horrific suicide attacks on recruiting centers. These attacks have not deterred the recruiting, but in fact have motivated the tribes to fight al-Qaeda.

The Anbar tribes have also taken an active role in fighting al-Qaeda. In March, several tribes and Sunni insurgent groups formed the Anbar Revenge Brigades to hunt al-Qaeda operatives in western Iraq. At the end of the summer, 25 of the 31 Anbar tribes banded together and created the Anbar Salvation Council to openly fight al-Qaeda, and pledged ?30,000 young men armed with assault rifles who were willing to confront and kill the insurgents and criminal gangs.?The Council has killed and captured numerous 'foreign fighters' and has provided hundreds of recruits for the police and Army, despite horrific attacks designed to terrorize new volunteers.


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Iraq on verge of civil war?

Maybe not, says Gateway Pundit, after actually reading the report.

Excerpts:

Iraqi security forces continue to develop into a capable force and continue to take the lead. On Tuesday in Ramadi, the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division assumed responsibility in its area of operations.

This now makes 90 Iraq army battalions in the lead. In total today, there are six of 10 Iraqi army divisions in the lead, 30 of 36 Iraqi brigades, and 90 of 112 Iraqi battalions in the lead. And we operate in support of them. All across Iraq, we continue to see an increasingly capable Iraqi security force continuing to take the lead...

The New York Times claims Iraq is close to a civil war. But if you notice the colored symbols in the leaked document there are no critical (red) indicators of this. So how does the New York Times get civil war out of this leaked document?

I say:

Wishful thinking at the senile gray lady, perhaps. Many allege the Times is deliberately trying to demoralize us by propaganda. Like Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw, that sort of thing. All *I* dare claim for certain is they're not telling their readers the truth, and that they have a very suspicious pattern of leaks.

Also, I've yet to see anyone define the phrase "civil war in Iraq" in a way that clearly differentiates it from the state of affairs under Saddam.

While we're on the subject, here's Tech Central Station on nation building - when it works, and when it doesn't.

Excerpt:

After MacArthur finished in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the American policy community missed the fundamental difference between his strategic approach of nation building and our technocratic approach in Europe. We have consistently adopted Marshall's model of state building when faced with a collapsed state. But dollars and ballots (and certainly not bullets) cannot build a viable state without the laws and a civil society on which to anchor it. In my earlier piece I said that the state is the "...apparatus of a nation" and states often fail because they are not based on a true nation. A successful modern state must be grounded in a viable nation. There is no other way.

I say:

By this definition, there is no such thing as the nation of Iraq, and there never was. But if we do it right, we can easily build an Iraqi Kurd nation and an Iraqi Shia nation. We're most of the way to the first one already. Plus, there's a good chance these two nations will form a federation to keep the Ba'athist trash of the Sunni Triangle in their place.

Consider this the fallback plan. I'd have preferred this as plan A, but Dubya doesn't listen to me, and the Democrats haven't got any plan at all. That is, unless you count giving up as a plan.

Another excerpt:

True, a "propinquity principle" may take hold after a long period of time as in Iraq where there are three very disparate communities.

I say:

Hardly a sure thing, but not as faint a hope as Schaefer seems to think, considering the news I pointed to above. Free Iraq is a nation now... sort of.

At least four-fifths of it is.


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