Awakening
It’s not just for Anbar anymore. Roggio notes formation of councils in four provinces around Baghdad … Anbar, Diyala, Salahadin and now Babil … with a threatened al-Qaeda going after the tribal chiefs. This in addition to Sunnis voting with their cellphones in Baghdad, to call in U.S. troops.
It would be wrong to deny support to people crying out for help, wouldn’t it?
Stratfor talks about a “shift in the operational behavior of jihadists, who thus far mostly have concentrated their attacks on Shiite targets. The sectarian conflict in Iraq has taken a new turn in which jihadists now are hitting mainstream Sunnis.” Stratfor, however, does not see this as part of the end of sectarian war, but a shift with Wahabist Sunnis now targeting moderate Sunnis instead of Shiites. I’d suggest that, given Shiite radical Moqtada al-Sadr’s recent public embrace of reconciliation, we could be looking at the beginning of the end of sectarian violence.
Wild card. In addition to al-Qaeda, Iran still is not ready for sectarian war or the killing of Americans to end, and Iran may prove harder to isolate and contain.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:39 pm on Thursday, May 31, 2007
2 Responses to “Awakening”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:28 am
I truly hope so, Jules. But we’ll have to wait and see. And we still need to be in Iraq for a long time to come.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:43 am
It’s still tribal actions. Until these people become Iraqis who defend their country, we will never be rid of the problems. They are fighting today on our side because their leaders tell them to. Yesterday, they were fighting just as hard for Al Qaeda because their leaders tell them to. Al Qaeda knows what they are doing when they go after the tribal chiefs.