http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA24Ak03.html
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Interesting, but, if examined carefully, ultimately one large contradiction, preceeded by a flawed analysis.
Here's the flaw...
The author's assertion is that insurgency is primarily Ba'athist, with foreign fighters added in for explosive bad measure.
His source, essentially, is occupation *intelligence* which has, we can safely assume, a strong motivation to create an image of guerillas as either tied to Hussein or sub-contractors from *international terrorist groups.*
Unproven, to say the least.
If the guerillas are, as the author says, mostly Ba'athists, inspired by loyalty to Hussein and party ideology to fight (and, perhaps even directly commanded by Hussein till his capture - by the Kurds? the Americans? the Klingons?) it would be reasonable to expect their movement to collapse with their leader behind bars - or something.
Maybe. But there are other reasons to resist occupation - some as personal as the sight of a dead loved one, killed by American force, others as intangible as Iraqi patriotism. By insisting that resistance flows from only one stream - Ba'athist ideology - the author is blithely ignoring the multitude of reasons which bring men with guns together against a common foe.
To put it another way, the occupation itself is the necessary condition for insurgency. The two exist as a cause-effect-cause loop. A basic point, but apparently difficult for many quite clever sorts to fathom.
Now for the contradiction...
Here's the final paragraph of the article:
<begin excerpt>
The ex-Ba'ath Sunnis need protection against Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's Shi'ites, who are bent on retribution and exercising control in the new Iraqi state. The Americans need leverage against al-Sistani and intelligence information on unreconstructed Ba'athists and foreign fighters.
When thousands of Shi'ites took to the streets of Baghdad this week, they called for direct elections and carried signs reading, "Saddam war criminal, not prisoner of war". It will have sent a chill down Saddam loyalists' spines. There are scores to settle. If the Americans left, it would be civil war - and the Sunnis wouldn't win it. The Americans won't leave. Too much has been invested and can't be written down. For better or worse, the Sunni Iraqis and Ba'athists at their core and the American occupiers are natural allies in the political wars ahead.
<end excerpt>
What is this except the description of the source for future (probably very near future) resistance? The Americans, allied with former Ba'athists and the wider Sunni in an effort to dare I say it, *contain* the Shi'ites, at least as represented by the powerful al-Sistani.
In short, the Americans and their in-country allies against every other Iraqi. Even shorter: civil war.
The author sought to describe the process through which resistance wanes but really seems to be predicting even greater resistance than presently observed.
DRM