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WASHINGTON, Jan.
7 (UPI) -- There is no certain way to know the
motives behind the latest wave of attacks in Iraq,
but there are good reasons for such attacks as seen
from the
viewpoint of hard-line insurgents. The efforts to
form an inclusive coalition
government are underway, and one key insurgent
objective is to block the creation of a stable
coalition that includes Arab Sunnis, Arab Shiites,
and Kurds.
Bloody attacks on Shiites are a key way to do this.
So is attempting to
discredit the whole process of governance by
exploiting the recent rise in fuel and gas prices
and attacking/threatening refineries to make things
much worse. At least for the near term, the primary
goal of hard-line insurgents is logically to disrupt
coalition building and discredit the government.
This, however, is only part of the strategy
hard-line insurgent will
logically follow. They also need to maintain their
Sunni base and attack/discredit Sunnis moving
towards compromise. This did not make sense during
the elections. Security was at an all time peak that
U.S. and Iraqi forces could not sustain.
Giving Arab Sunnis legislative power made sense as
long as those elected used it to check Shiite power
and limit coalition building. Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi
and al-Qaida still opposed the elections, but it
made more sense to wait and intimidate the Sunnis
who gained office, exploit charges of election
fraud, and make it clear that it was safe to oppose
coalitions and compromise within the political
system, but not to oppose it.
If one "red teams" insurgent motives, there are also
reasons for insurgents
to be more optimistic about what they can accomplish
during the coming year:
-- They still can mount large numbers of attacks.
The Coalition forces
stress that the number of attacks has risen, but
that successes have dropped.
It is far from clear this is true about success if
one considers the impact of the attacks, and the key
point is that the insurgents are still strong enough
for the number of attacks to increase.
-- Some key aspects of the fracture lines between
Sunni and Shi'ite are
growing. The Arab Sunni vs. Arab Shiite and Kurd
tensions in the security forces are more serious,
although the United States and Britain have made
major efforts to control and ease them.
Sectarian divisions within the Iraqi Ministry of
Defense and Ministry of Interior continue to grow.
The new army is becoming steadily more Shiite and
there are growing problems in promoting Sunni
officers. The police remains divided along sectarian
and ethnic lines. These problems are being increased
by rushing new Iraqi units into the field, many in
areas where they create
sectarian friction. (There seems to have been some
manipulation of readiness data to get the number of
battalions with level 3 and level 2 readiness up to
50. Low quality units may have been added somewhat
prematurely to the level 3 readiness total in spite
of poor quality and experience.)
-- The election has been highly controversial among
Sunnis, with all kinds
of charges and conspiracy theories. Many who voted,
voted against the
constitution and as a check to the growth of Shiite
and Kurdish power.
-- The new Coalition will inherently be unstable
even if it does include the one Sunni group that
seems willing to compromise. There will be at least
6-8 months in which ongoing political debates occur
over federation, control of oil resources and
revenues, power of taxation, allocation of
government funds, role of religion in government and
law, and virtually every other "hot
button" issue.
This does not mean the insurgents -- particular
radical insurgents like
al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida -- are winning. There is no
charismatic Iraqi Sunni
leader, there is only limited foreign support, the
hard-line insurgents are a
distinct minority within the Sunni majority, and
most of the successes in
building new Iraq forces are real.
But, outsiders should understand that for many
insurgents, the immediate
goal is not to be able to win, or implement a given
program (most have no
coherent practical program). It is rather to deny
victory and success to the
newly elected Iraqi government and push the United
States and Coalition out in a war of attrition. From
a "red team" view, this must still seem all too
possible and the insurgents seem to be acting on
this strategy.
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