On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Doug Henwood wrote:
> But I don't really get why AQ or The Resistance or whatever wants Iraq in
> civil war either. What's the point?
The basic strategy behind this seems straightforward (although the attribution of intentions is pure construction because there are at the very least 4 different centers of command according to the recent ICG report):
1) The Sunnis used to rule the country and dominated the upper echelons of the army. They feel that if the US leaves, and it's them against the Shiites, they'll win.
2) So their goal is to get the US out. As in all guerrilla wars, it's basically a matter of time. You want to make the maximum amount of trouble with the minimum amount of danger to yourself and save your forces for the decisive moment when the occupier leaves. Which takes years.
3) Stirring up civil war does that. It wears down the American morale at home, and it infuriates the Shiite government against them. And after the Shiites sponsor attacks on Sunnis, it rallies more Sunnis into their ranks.
On this model, once the Americans leave, then the capital can be taken and order can be reimposed Saddam style.
The Sunni nationalist forces could be totally wrong in their evaluation of the balance of military forces (and Edward Luttwak, for one, thinks they are). But it's a plausible judgment and exactly what you'd expect from them.
Michael