IRAQ - Next Target Please

IRAQ - Next target please.
Al Qaeda is no longer the master of events in Iraq. They have lost the initiative. From Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, "AQI and therefore the larger al Qaeda movement--has suffered a stunning defeat in Iraq over the past six months. It has lost all of its urban strongholds and is engaged in a desperate attempt to reestablish a foothold even in the countryside." AQI is the US term for al Qaeda’s largely foreign-run Iraqi franchise yet this organization is bonded with the whole, interacting with the global movement, sending aid when requested and receiving aid when needed. Thus, as the US has finally grasped the keys to victory, learning how to protect the people of Iraq and help them to protect themselves, we have at the same time crippled this terrorists group’s world agenda; the very reason we are there - to see to our own security. In the words of one US planner in Baghdad, "We are demolishing them."

Background: AQI had used two methods to establish itself among the Sunni: When it found Sunnis threatened by Shia militias it offered its fighters. In other communities it simply used violence to terrorize Sunnis into participation. Sunni tribes began to turn on al Qaeda and seek American help when the terrorists tried to arrange forced marriages with local women as a means of securing a foothold. After giving the people a taste of their sadism, after executing children for playing with American-donated soccer balls, after chopping the fingers off young men for smoking, after murdering entire families in front of their youngest son, so he would live to tell the tale - al Qaeda is for the first time more widely hated than feared.

Thus, the decision of the Sunni tribes to break with al Qaeda, although not entirely anticipated by the US, has proved to be a major boost to the US "surge" strategy in the country. Political and military constantly interact. It would have been harder for the Sunni tribes to turn against AQI absent our military help, likely impossible. Now that they know that we are there to stay they can look to reconcile with the government of Iraq. And Bush and his team are in Iraq at this writing for that purpose - to steer the Shia-led government to win back the confidence of Sunni politicians. The recent plan to release suspected Sunni insurgents from Iraqi jails is part of this, a last-ditch effort to prevent this government from collapsing, central to a key accord announced last week between the three main political blocks to try to kick-start the government after 15 months of deadlock.

The next major US objective - Iranian interference. Both politically and militarily the US has stepped up its efforts to combat Iranian intervention because the Iranians have increased their support for violence in Iraq as the surge has proved a success. From the Heritage Foundation, "One thing is clear: Iran has consistently supplied weapons, its own advisors and Lebanese Hezbollah advisors to multiple resistance groups in Iraq, both Sunni and Shia, and has supported these groups as they have targeted Sunni Arabs, Coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government." It appears that Iranian-backed insurgents account for roughly half the attacks on Coalition forces now, a dramatic change from previous periods that had seen the overwhelming majority of attacks coming from the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda. (We outlined in a June/30 sketch an effective method to deal with Iran, hopefully disposing of a military solution.)