I opened an e-mail from the Center for American Progress and followed a link to a Washington Times article, mostly out of curiosity to see what CAP could find of value in one of the major right-wing organs. There I found an article that summarized a blog entry of a "Australian Col. David Kilcullen, who just completed a tour as senior counterinsurgency aide to U.S. commander Gen. David H. Petraeus in Baghdad."
The colonel is part of a group blog - Small Wars Journal - and has an entry that deals with the Anbar Awakening. Kilcullen discusses the causes of the uprising and one of the points is the cultural difference between the Sunni Al Qaeda and the Sunni Anbari. One of the major stress points was Al Qaeda's attempt to marry into the tribes, something the Anbari refused. The refusal led to violence between the Anbari and Al Qaeda, thus we have the Anbar Awakening.
Kilcullen makes two other observations that I think deserve much more attention:
1) Iraqi society is based upon tribes, not religious sects. There are tribes that contain both Sunni and Shia and they do intermarry. It may make more sense for the tribes to be considered states and be represented in Parliament instead of a provincial (geographic) system.
2) Here I will simply quote Kilcullen:
But we should remember that this uprising against extremism belongs to the Iraqi people, not to us – it was their idea, they started it, they are leading it, it is happening on their terms and on their timeline, and our job is to support where needed, ensure proper political safeguards and human rights standards are in place, but ultimately to realize that this will play out in ways that may be good or bad, but are fundamentally unpredictable.
His entire post is worth a read.
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