Oh, and Condi, considering that only a thousand or so of the 100,000 insurgents in Iraq are foreign, I really don't see how closing the border with Syria is going to make much difference. But, hey, that's just me.
http://www.juancole.com/index.htmlThe US military and politicians made a key mistake when they saw the North Vietnamese Communists of Ho Chi Minh as primarily Communists, when in fact they were Vietnamese nationalists. It was the nationalist component that proved so attractive to many of their collaborators in the south. After the North Vietnamese Communists took over they almost immediately had a firefight with Communist China. It would be tragic if the US makes another such error in Iraq. Bush and Cheney speak as though the enemy there is a terrorist international, a stateless al-Qaeda dedicated to establishing an Islamic superstate and bringing down the United States. That is 99.99 % wrong. Almost all those fighting in Iraq are Iraqi nationalists. Just as Communist Vietnam posed no real threat to the US and was of little use to other Communist states as an ally, so a post-US Iraq would be a country of Iraqi nationalists (with, admittedly, ethno-religious subnationalisms playing either a decisive or an important role).
. . .
Al-Qaeda is technically defined as persons who have given their fealty to Usama Bin Laden and who have been given an operation to do by him. It is sort of like being a "made man" in the Cosa Nostra. Not every two bit gangster is a mafioso, and not every violent Salafi is al-Qaeda. A recent study by Gen. Barry McCaffrey suggested that there are in fact 100,000 insurgents (I prefer the term guerrilla) in Iraq, not the 20,000 to 25,000 usually estimated by the US military. Iraq's previous interior minister estimated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq at less than a thousand. Most of these are Salafi Jihadis of one sort or another (revivalist Sunnis). So 99,000 insurgents are Iraqis. And none of them is al-Qaeda in the sense of being loyal to the organization or fighting for Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are fighting for some vision of the Iraqi nation, whether inflected by religion or not.
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One reason for which Baathists and Sunni Arab nationalists are most often ignored as key components of the insurgency is that it suits everyone. The Baathis are doing horrible things, and don't want the credit for them. The radical Sunnis are small groups and do want credit, so they claim it and the Baathis don't contradict them. And, the Bush administration is ecstatic every time "al-Qaeda" takes credit for the violence in Iraq. That makes it easier for them to claim the Iraq War as part of their 'war on terror.' When al-Zarqawi was killed in spring of 2006, it didn't have the slightest impact on the vigor of the insurgency. Ipso facto, he wasn't behind that much of it.
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Iraqi Sunni fundamentalists such as the 1920 Revolution Brigade are not al-Qaeda. In fact, their name shows them to be Iraqi nationalists, since it refers to the 1920 revolution against British colonialism. Al-Qaeda is against country nationalism, emphasizing the Islamic ummah or community rather than individual nation states. The actual 1920 revolt, led by Shiites, would mean nothing to Bin Laden. This point is important because self-conception tells you about the scope of action of a group. The 1920 Revolution Brigade is all about getting rid of foreigners from Iraq. It isn't about international terrorism or hitting the US mainland. We don't have to worry about it if US troops leave Iraq. Its members will just heave a sigh of relief and go back to their ordinary jobs. If it or others keep trying to hit Shiites after the Americans leave, they will likely get themselves massacred. They aren't a danger to skyscrapers on the east Coast in the US.
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