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Jewish World Review
May 16, 2005
/ 7 Iyar, 5765
Appointing Sunni defense minister takes air out of insurgency
By
Jack Kelly
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
More than 400 people have been killed in Iraq in the last two weeks,
including at least five U.S. Marines taking part in Operation Matador in
western Iraq.
A reader wants to know if, in light of this upsurge in violence, I still
believe, as I wrote in a column Feb. 27th, that "the war in Iraq is all but
won."
My answer is emphatically yes.
The body count is up because two offensives are under way. The insurgents
have launched a suicide bombing campaign in an effort to destabilize the new
Iraqi government. The Marines are clearing out the rats' nests in western
Iraq to which insurgents fled after they were expelled from their stronghold
in Fallujah last November.
The suicide attacks gather ominous headlines, but are failing in their
strategic purpose. They have not diminished the willingness of Iraqis to
enlist in the army and the police. Between 1,500 and 3,000 more sign up
each week. And the Shia and the Kurds have not been goaded into bloody
confrontations with the Sunnis.
The insurgents have to be discouraged by the headline which appeared in the
Arabic newspaper al Sharq al Awsat Monday: "Iraqi Arab Sunnis head toward
army enlisting posts in spite of explosions."
Until recently, Sunni religious leaders discouraged support for the
government. But now that a Sunni has been appointed minister of defense,
they're encouraging Sunnis to enlist.
"The Sunni involvement in the new government ...is a nightmare scenario for
(the insurgents) it means the loss of their only constituency," said the
Australian web logger Arthur Chrenkoff, from whose blog I found I al Sharq
al Awsat story.
"When the terrorist bombings began to kill large numbers of civilians back
in late 2003, many Iraqis believed the Americans were behind the attacks,"
noted Jim Dunnigan of StrategyPage. "Iraqis didn't believe al Qaida and the
Baath Party terrorists could be so stupid. Now, Iraqis consider al Qaida
and the Baath Party terrorists to be depraved and rather clueless
butchers."
The insurgency is now dominated by al Qaida. The news media describes this
as ominous, as they describe every development in Iraq as ominous. But the
opposite is true.
Al Qaida is coming to the fore through subtraction. Many of the"former
regime elements" who dominated the insurgency are giving up.
"The Baathists are secular-oriented socialists with little truck for the
strict religious fundamentalism of al Qaida," noted web logger Donald
Sensing, a former Army artillery officer. "They have been working together
only because they each hate America and democracy, but at bottom, they hate
each other, too."
Because they are Iraqis, all but the most blood-drenched Baathists have the
option of quitting. Al Qaida does not.
"If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished," retired Air
Force LtGen. Tom McInerny told the Washington Times in a story published
Wednesday.
The Marines say the insurgents they're fighting in Operation Matador are
almost all foreigners, and that they're well trained, well armed, and
fighting like cornered rats.
That's because they are. One has to go to blogs like Chrenkoff's,
Dunnigan's, and Sensing's (One Hand Clapping) to get the information and
analysis journalists ought to be providing, but aren't. Bill Roggio (Fourth
Rail), Chester (Adventures of Chester), Wretchard (Belmont Club) and Scott
Koenig (Indepundit), have done a superb job of describing the goals and
progress of Operation Matador, complete with maps.
The Marines have established blocking positions on the escape routes into
Syria, and are systematically reducing the pockets of resistance. The
terrorists are fighting fiercely, because they've nowhere to run. They're
dying in big bunches. The Marines are not.
The mere fact that a major offensive is being mounted in the mostly empty
western desert indicates the situation in the cities is well enough in hand
to spare the troops.
We don't know for how much longer the fighting will go on, or how many
casualties there will be. The bloodiest battle of the Pacific war was
Okinawa, the last.
But the insurgency's grave was dug militarily in Fallujah last November, and
politically when Iraq went to the polls in January. The appointment of a
Sunni defense minister and the success of Operation Matador are nails in the
coffin.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a
deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan
administration. Comment by clicking here.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly
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