Only One Thing Unites Iraqis: Hatred of the US

[Up2Late]

(If you're looking for "good news," look somewhere else, it's not here.)

Only One Thing Unites Iraqis: Hatred of the US

By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent. Posted December 14, 2007.

As British forces come to the end of their role in Iraq, what sort of country do they leave behind? Has the United States turned the tide in Baghdad? Does the fall in violence mean that the country is stabilizing after more than four years of war? Or are we seeing only a temporary pause in the fighting? American commentators are generally making the same mistake that they have made since the invasion of Iraq was first contemplated five years ago. They look at Iraq in over-simple terms and exaggerate the extent to which the US is making the political weather and is in control of events there.

The US is the most powerful single force in Iraq but by no means the only one. The shape of Iraqi politics has changed over the past year, though for reasons that have little to do with "the surge" - the 30,000 US troop reinforcements - and much to do with the battle for supremacy between the Sunni and Shia Muslim communities.

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq turned against al Qa'ida partly because it tried to monopolise power but primarily because it brought their community close to catastrophe. The Sunni war against US occupation had gone surprisingly well for them since it began in 2003. It was a second war, the one against the Shia majority led by al-Qa'ida, which the Sunni were losing, with disastrous results for themselves. "The Sunni people now think they cannot fight two wars - against the occupation and the government - at the same time," a Sunni friend in Baghdad told me last week. "We must be more realistic and accept the occupation for the moment."

This is why much of the non-al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency has effectively changed sides. An important reason why al-Qa'ida has lost ground so swiftly is a split within its own ranks. The US military - the State Department has been very much marginalized in decision-making in Baghdad - does not want to emphasize that many of the Sunni fighters now on the US payroll, who are misleadingly called "concerned citizens", until recently belonged to al Qa'ida and have the blood of a great many Iraqi civilians and American soldiers on their hands....

(more at link) <http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/70656/>

[gateley]

1. God we do a good job, don't we? nt

Recommend.

[RC]

2. al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency???

Sounds like propaganda to me. Just how do we get away with calling Iraqi citizens defending their country against foreign invaders who have destroyed the government there, insurgents?

If something like that happened here, would we be calling ourselves insurgents? Don't think so. We'd be defending our country against the foreign 'Invaders'.

al-Qa'ida is so dick cheney.

[Submariner]

3. I always thought of Iraqi's as the 'Resistance' fighters,

which I think is the more appropriate term. They didn't insurge from anywhere. They were already there.

[Up2Late]

5. First, I think you need to go back and re-read the article, because it doesn't say that...

...anywhere that I could find. It does say NON-al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency several places but not "al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency" as far as I can see and,

Second, one thing you are forgetting (or maybe never knew) is that, the Iraqi borders are completely artificial and meaningless to the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish sects in Iraq. The Iraqi borders were thought up by a wealthy British woman "diplomat" back in about 1915 and were then drawn up and agreed upon by the British and the French in 1916 or so to divide up the Mesopotamian Oil resources.

It's had to find on the web, but if you Google the words "Sunni, Shia and Kurdish sects" (without quotes) and then click on the Google "Images" link at the top of the results page, you'll find these maps:

(copy these links to a new browser windows, but remove the space between utexas and .edu to see them)

http://www.lib.utexas .edu/maps/world_maps/muslim_distribution.jpg

http://www.lib.utexas .edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/kurdish_86.jpg

(A smaller version of the top map is at the link below)

http://www.oilempire .us/graphics/shia_map.jpg (copy this link to a new browser window, but remove the space between oilempire and .us)

So yes, they are Sunni Insurgents, coming from other parts of the middle-east to help their secular brothers, Iraq is just lines on a map drawn by the British and French a long time ago to them.

[flashl]

4. "American commentators are generally making the same mistake"

It's not a mistake.

[Up2Late]

6. kick n/t

:kick: