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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Feral who wrote (177504)	12/8/2005 5:56:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, the one difference between Iraq and Vietnam is that there is a global organization of Muslims willing and able to blow up anyone that disagrees with their jihadi beliefs. Yes... I would concur.. But Marxism and Maoism was/is just as much of an ideology as Islamo-Fascism, with adherents in every society willing to conduct terrorist acts on behalf of their "cause". But one thing I'm becoming more and more convinced of here in Iraq is the symbiosis between the Sunnis, Ba'thists, and AQIZ. AQIZ, just like the Ba'th party, could not exist without the deliberate, or at least tacit, support of the Sunni tribes in Iraq. So it causes one to wonder if the AQIZ insurgency is merely the "puppet" with the strings being pulled primarily by the former regime leadership. Lord knows that the Ba'thists would not be able to entice any major support from the muslim world by proclaiming a "Ba'thist Jihad", but they certainly can tap into the militant movement by controlling the AQ in Iraq elements as a cover. I don't know for sure.. I've discussed it with a variety of people and most tend to discount it. But I did a bit of research recently on the web and was ABSOLUTELY SURPRISED to find Juan Cole proposing something very similar. I've seldom agreed with his views in the past, but I think there is a mounting body of evidence to suggest that he might be on to something: prisonplanet.com Cole's theory is that the Ba'ath have a dilemma on their hands: They want to return to power and rule Iraq just like in the good old days, but to get there from here they need to stir up as much civil strive as possible, in order to make Iraq ungovernable and force the Americans to withdraw. To that end, the insurgents are car bombing and suicide bombing the shit out of the Shi'a, to try to ramp up the cycle of atrocity and revenge until it reaches full-scale civil war. But that creates a problem: If the Ba'athists do manage to claw their way back into power, how can they hope to rule a Shi'a majority that has been enraged and radicalized by such a ferocious communal struggle? The best way to defuse, or at least minimize, opposition, Cole speculates, would be to have a scapegoat to blame for the worst atrocities against the Shi'a civilian population. And Zarqawi and his type -- militant Salafists and Wahhabis -- are excellent candidates. Once in power, a restored Ba'ath regime could turn on and annihilate the "foreign fighters," thus demonstrating that national unity, not a pogrom against the Shi'a, is their goal. I see some holes in Cole's theory. I find it hard to believe, for example, that the Ba'ath are so out of touch with reality they think the Shi'a would let bygones be bygones, and agree to the restoration of a Ba'athist dictatorship, just because the evil Zarqawi and his men had been lined up against a wall and shot. The Shi'a would know from practical experience that they could be next. The Ba'athists may simply hope that by appealing to Iraqi nationalism and unity (their traditional pitch) they could divide or weaken the Shi'a parties or peel off the more secular elements. The Ba'ath itself, Juan Cole notes, used to have a fairly sizable number of Shi'a members. True, most of them were simply getting along by going along, but that's kind of the point -- if the Ba'ath returned to power, and demonstrated they're not eager to fill more mass graves, some number of Shi'a might be willing to play along if they thought it was to their personal advantage. Which strikes me a major opportunity for the US to mount a major effort to expose these Ba'thist/AQIZ links in order to discredit Zarqawi as a puppet of Saddam's people. Even if not entirely factual (since I haven't seen (nor would be able to discuss) hard factual, and confirmed evidence suggesting such a high level link between Former Regimists (FRE as we call them) and Zarqawi, it would decrease the williingness of young muslim youths from around the middle east coming to Iraq to wage Jihad on behalf of the Ba'thists. And I think that's a good thing. And it suggests that there were some outstanding linkages between Zarqawi's Al Qai'da element and the Ba'athist elites, both currently, and pre-war. Maybe they both find themselves in a Faustian bargain with one another, both hoping to eventually dominate the other after they've subjugated the Shi'ites again. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that the Ba'thists ARE NOW involved in an alliance with AQIZ. And for that, they are no better than the Taliban and deserve to suffer the same fate, no matter where they live. Again, this is just my opinion based upon cumulative observation over the past 1 1/2 years. Hawk