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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (248105)	11/11/2007 4:14:42 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, there are some important things in there, which, if true, are indeed optimistic. For example: The rejection of al Qaeda by the Ramadi sheikhs in late 2006 has been widely reported. General Petraeus transformed the tribal movement in Anbar into a national phenomenon supportive of government institutions. U.S. commanders fostered grassroots movements throughout Iraq, methodically negotiating security agreements with local officials, tribes, and former insurgent leaders. They thus achieved one of the major objectives of the counterinsurgency strategy by reconciling much of the Sunni population with the government. Diyala Province, which has an extremely complex network of Sunni, Shia, and mixed tribes, illustrates the complementary relationship between improving security and movements of concerned citizens. As U.S. forces reconnoitered Baquba and its vicinity, some locals who had once fought the Americans as insurgents began cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda. These leaders helped U.S. forces clear enemy sanctuaries during the summer offensive by revealing enemy positions and weapons caches. For example, members of the 1920s Brigades--a Sunni insurgent group that operated alongside al Qaeda until May--in Baquba identified the specific locations of rigged houses and deep-buried IEDs before the city was cleared in June. Reconciliation efforts proceeded as soon as U.S. and Iraqi forces had cleared western Baquba, and rippled outward through the Diyala River valley as U.S. forces eliminated the enemy there. Tribal leaders in Diyala recruited locals to guard their communities alongside U.S. and Iraqi forces. Citizens did so with the aim not only of preventing the return of terrorists, but also of joining the Iraqi police and thus supporting the government of Iraq. and The elimination of important secret cell leaders in western Baghdad has reduced EFP attacks in northwestern Baghdad dramatically. According to Colonel Burton: "Very rarely do we find an effective EFP within our . . . former . . . EFP hot spots, given the increased participation of local nationals in helping us to find these weapons, the increased responsiveness of the Iraqi security forces to defeat these cells and the increased effectiveness of our targeting operations to defeat the entire network." The operations against secret cells in the northern belt recently exposed several large caches of EFPs in Diyala Province, probably intended for Baghdad. Generals Petraeus and Odierno have conducted a sophisticated counterinsurgency campaign aimed at securing the population of Iraq, and at the development of political, economic, and communications infrastructure to support the overarching political objectives. In addition, they coordinated simultaneous and successive military operations throughout Iraq, rather than concentrating on one region. Their campaign is the largest and longest sustained offensive that America has undertaken in Iraq so far. The operations have severely disrupted al Qaeda's ability to project power into Baghdad by denying the group sanctuaries, fragmenting the belts, destroying support networks, and eliminating key personnel. Operations against Shia militias and Iranian extremists have reduced their ability to take advantage of al Qaeda's demise in order to advance their sectarian agenda. This theater-wide effort has been aimed at securing the population using all military instruments available to the coalition; it did not prefer special forces to conventional forces, but rather used them synergistically. Generals Petraeus and Odierno pursued a vision of local-level reconciliation aimed at supporting the overarching political goals. They recognized that national politics and legislative agendas would not determine whether violence fell. The security facilitated by the military operations accelerated the spread of local efforts to turn against al Qaeda. U.S. commanders catalyzed those efforts in former insurgent safe havens once they were cleared. Commanders are therefore trying to connect these local movements to the provincial and national government. If it is so that a clear majority of Sunnis are fundamentally reconciled to living as a minority in Iraq, and if it is so that a clear majority of Shia are willing to forego vengeance, then this is indeed a positive thing. However, Kagan focuses on the military aspect, which while difficult, is in almost every way the easiest task to accomplish in this situation. As Kagan notes at the end of her article, it remains to be seen what will happen politically. And as I and others noted many times since the overthrow of Saddam, that is where the rubber hits the road. Perhaps the violence of 2005-early 07 was just what Iraqis needed to experience to make them sober up about what a civil war would do to the country. As usual, we'll have to wait and see what happens over the next 3-5 years. And of course, what will happen in the north with the Kurdish-Turkey conflict heating up. Not to mention Afghanistan/Pakistan. Which is where the real action should have been focused all along, not Iraq.