> "The fact that the Iraqi resistance is largely Islamist...."
>
> Is that actually true? I thought the resistance was a pretty diverse
> thing.
It is diverse, but I think that there is an overlapping Islamist-nationalist trend which is in the ascendancy. Secondly, there is more than one kind of 'Islamist', and I would certainly argue that most of the resistance are not salafists. It also depends on how you conceive of 'resistance' because here I was talking about armed groups, whereas resistance needn't be military. I don't think this necessarily makes it impossible to develop forms of solidarity, but it does make it more difficult and less spontaneous. Probably the main problem for developing solidarity is the sheer disaggregated nature of the military resistance and its hitherto substantial dissociation from civil society and mass resistance groups. In short, while I wish the Left would argue that these people have a right to resist and win, and aren't the monsters depicted in official propaganda, I also think we have to say that they ain't the Sandinistas or the NLF.