London's Telegraph says Thursday's well-coordinated attacks across Sunni Iraq weren't the work of "terrorists" per se, but were a well-planned Baathist counterattack.
The spate of highly co-ordinated terrorist attacks in Iraq yesterday displayed intelligence in every sense of the word. It had all the hallmarks of Ba'athist tradecraft, notably of the Special Republican Guard units that melted away during the Allied military operations of 2003. But far from being the work of "irrational" fanatics (who want to bring the country down in some vast Millenarian conflagration with the "Great Satan" of America), the latest act of evil-doing manifests a depressingly shrewd grasp of the dynamics of Iraqi society.Consider, for a moment, those areas that got off comparatively lightly. The Kurdish zone was not heavily hit; much the same goes for the Shia strongholds. The targets, rather, were the Ba'athists' own predominantly Sunni Arab sectors. Far from seeking to plunge the country into sectarian war with the Shias and Kurds - as many American spokesmen believe - the insurgents seem now to be fighting mainly to tilt the balance within the Sunni Arab community.
This makes a certain sense in its own bleak terms. The Kurds have enjoyed effective autonomy for years and the Shias (who compose a majority in Iraq but a small minority in the Arab world as a whole) inevitably hope that they will now do better than under Saddam Hussein. The Ba'athists could not be sure of winning any conflict if they took on these forces directly.
A far more dangerous development from their viewpoint is the craving of the best elements in the Sunni Arab community - exemplified by the incoming president, Ghazi al Yawr - to break with the past. If they secure a permanent foothold, then all hope of a Ba'athist restoration is gone. But if the remnants of the ancien régime manage to intimidate the Sunni Arabs back into their clutches, a new set of possibilities opens up.
If the Saddamites become the "sole legitimate representatives" of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, then they will be able to lay far greater claim to the support of the Sunni majority in the Arab world as a whole. Via such proxies, the Ba'athists will then exert an even greater gravitational pull to tilt Western policy further in an anti-democratic and anti-Shia direction.
Writing earlier, Belmont Club sees the hand of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda instead, but the same strategic intent: control over the Sunni heartland.
From the looks of it, Zarqawi has brought in the Al Qaeda first team to derail the June 30 turnover to Shi'ite Iyad Allawi. But although he has quality, for his fighters are far better than Moqtada Al-Sadr's rabble, he has forgotten that the April upsurge of violence, which some had breathlessly hoped would signal the downfall of the US in Iraq, was only made possible by Teheran's decision to unleash simultaneous unrest in the south, in the hopes that a desperate America would pay any price for relief. But after the US calmly beat back both attacks, grinding Sadr down to a powder, it was no longer faced with a two-front war. There is now no way that the Shi'ites will allow the Sunni-backed Zarqawi to call the shots. The Sunni Saddam had lorded it over them once before; and neither the Kurds nor the Shi'ites will so easily let that happen again. A more attainable goal will be to prevent the emergence of any independent Sunni figure in the new government. Zaraqawi's methods are nothing if brutal. His elite forces have killed 66 Iraqis and 3 Americans in the Sunni triangle in the last 24 hours, a reminder that any Sunni who breaks with him should prepare to die.Posted by Alan at June 25, 2004 12:47 AMAlthough both the Sunnis, the Shi'ites and the other interests like France, possibly fronted by the UN may form occasional tactical coalitions against America, their interests fundamentally conflict. Like bank robbers squabbling over the loot, they may decide to jointly resist the police but will knife each other at the earliest opportunity once the coast is clear. Only America can play the lone hand. Some observers believe that both Washington and Teheran are clearing the decks for final showdown over Iraq once the two weaker players are ousted from the game. Clearly the Shi'ite-Iranian theater is the decisive area of operations. The Sunni Triangle, however disgustingly Zarqawi's elite fighters behave, is the secondary front.
As an aside, one might remark on the extremity of the Jihadi effort in Iraq. They are sending their best team, the team that harried the IDF out of Lebanon to no good effect. US forces have quietly become very efficient, with chemical test kits to screen suspects for explosive residue, aircraft which electronically detonate IEDs, a steady drumbeat of raids on explosives factories and other operational advances. The enemy is still able to kill Americans, but not in any decisive numbers. But how will America use its capability to achieve a strategic result?