Arming Sunnis

Arg. This is just incredibly frustrating. The US-sponsored alliance of Sunni Arab nationalists in Anbar Province aimed at ejecting al-Qaeda seems to be fracturing as some elements of the alliance accuse others of being dupes and collaborators with the American occupiers. And, of course, this is the essence of the problem. It's simply impossible for the United States of America to be the main sponsor of a credible nationalist resistance to al-Qaeda. The only way to take advantage of Sunni Arab discontent with foreign fighters in Iraq is for us to step out of the way and stop trying to micromanage events. Instead, though, we insert ourselves into every embryonic promising trend and wind up wrecking it.

Somewhat oddly, Democracy has an article advocating that we begin adopting the "arm Sunni militias" policy that has, in fact, already been implemented and that's running into some problems.

Comments

Too bad Saddam isn't around because we could have used him and a Sunni military to combat al-Qaeda...

Maybe that will be the new plan in September: Resurrect Saddam - The new "New Way Forward"

Posted by CJ_n_PA | June 11, 2007 11:42 AM

That whole arming of fundamentalist Islamic drug dealing warlord thugs worked great in Afghanistan.

After all, besides helping end the Soviet Union, it also unleashed the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and Al Qa'ida.

Which is really interesting, because the Soviets never attacked the USA, but Reagan's buddies from the Afghan terror war did.

Posted by El Cid | June 11, 2007 12:11 PM

It's not a civil war, but we're taking sides.

The minority side.

And we're supporting democracy.

Not as many deaths as in Vietnam, but the BS is thicker and more grimly comic.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 11, 2007 1:39 PM

And we're supporting democracy?

What we appear to be doing, in a sort of half-assed and fairly incompetent way, is trying to play some sort of colonial divide-and-rule game, without having either the stomach to be brutally Roman enough or the decency to be honest about it.

And, as the Cid points out, this whole "the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" strategy worked out so well in the 'Stan.

While I personally loathe the idea of becoming the 21st Century successor of Britian, Spain and Rome I will accept that there is a case to be made for it. What I find contemptible is that outside Niall Fergeson (sp?) no one on the Right seems willing to openly admit that object.

You'd think as our attempt at picking up the White Man's Burden circles the drain that our "leaders" and their intellectual siderunners would be LESS liable to come up with goofy schemes rather than more, but perhaps the air's getting thin inside the Bunker.

Steiner WILL arrive in time!

Posted by FDChief | June 11, 2007 3:00 PM

The Pentagon has estimated that there are between 1200 & 2000 A.Q. in Iraq for a couple of years. Just how incompetent is the army, with 150K troops there, can't seem to get the upper hand?

Posted by 1Watt | June 11, 2007 10:05 PM

Maybe it's a psycological impossibility to for a superpower to collectively resist the urge to meddle.

In Vietnam, the communists started fighting each other after we left. Vietnam invaded Cambodia, China invaded Vietnam. And in the long run, SE Asia took care of itself.

Its obvious that the bad guys will start fighting each other as soon as we leave, because they are already. Yes it will be bloody, as was SE Asia, but it's also inevitable. It's time to butt out.

Posted by gaijin51 | June 14, 2007 5:56 PM