New Developments in Iraq
U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies
With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.
American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.
American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants’ extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.
This is getting rather dicey. I’d like to view it as good news, but getting involved in a many-sided civil war (or “extreme ethnic/sectarian violence,” if you prefer) arming some guys today, taking sides with some other guys next week, telling everyone to be nice, and (importantly) not really being able to tell the sides apart, strikes me as a bad idea.
If there is a central government, whether it is relatively strong or weak, commanding the allegiance of more or fewer people, but it is, at least, a defined entity, and it is fighting against some kind of opponent (terrorists, guerrillas, insurgents, whatever), then that would be a conflict that we could understand and prevail.
This business of arming various groups, with the plan or hope that they then go along with our view for the country … makes me a little uncomfortable.
The fourth paragraph of the article puts it better:
But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.
Allahpundit has more on this. He’s as optimistic as possible, but also a little skeptical.
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