This Washington Post story with its sub-head "U.S. General Says Foreign Fighters Now Seen as Main Threat" was more than a little amusing to me, given that I had seen him as such since at least the bombing on the Jordanian embassy in July 2003. It also looks like I beat the rush as far as all the recent media reports about Iraqis and in particular former members of Saddam's regime throwing their lot in with Zarqawi.
The issue of just how great a threat Zarqawi is in Iraq has become a political issue with some rather amusing twists on both sides of the aisle depending on the current topic of debate. Whenever Bush wants to argue that Iraq is a major front in the war on terrorism, Zarqawi is Exhibit A. Whenever the Democrats want to argue that the war in Iraq has only increased the threat of terrorism, he's also front and center. This has to be squared with the reality that the majority of insurgents are in fact Iraqis by all accounts, which sort of interferes with both narratives unless they are put in proper context. As I noted in the comments over at Liberals Against Terrorism, if we are only talking about a few hundred Saudi jihadis I think the issue of "bleed back" should be put on the table in favor of the bonafide terrorist training grounds in places like Pakistan and Mindanao if we're really worried about curtailing the spread of terrorism. As for the issue of whether or not Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism, if most of the insurgents are just nationalists whose leaders have no intentions or agenda outside Iraq, then we have very little to worry about on that front. That's the ANSWER line, near as I can tell from their website and publications, and the fact that bears little resemblance to the actual situation on the ground is one of the reasons why the situation in Iraq is so concerning.
As I think Cordesman places in its proper contexts, the actual number of fighters, foreign or otherwise, in al-Qaeda in Iraq arm of the insurgency is the one that is most effective at actually derailing the political process, radicalizing the Sunni (and Shi'ite) community, and making it exceedingly difficult to resolve the Iraqi political process. The big suicide bombings that dominate most of the media coverage of Iraq are not, by and large, killing US troops but rather Iraqis - the major killer of US troops is not car bombs, but rather IEDs. The IEDs are definitely a major problem, but they aren't what's providing the day-to-day images of violence and chaos that when combined with the daily body count (which are being provided by the IEDs) are so harmful both to the Iraqi political process and domestic support for the war. Because Zarqawi doesn't really give a damn about the Iraqi people or what happens to them, he has no problem murdering them en masse, with the result being that he is willing to compromise many of the goals that most nationalist-based insurgencies strive for (example: as broad-based a coalition as possible, as in Kashmir, Chechnya, and South Thailand, where the insurgents range from ethnic or secular nationalists to the most stringent of jihadis) in order to throw a monkey wrench into the political process. The result is that he isn't likely to be ruling the whole of Iraq any time in the near future, but it makes things considerably difficult for those of us seeking a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democratic state and cause a great deal of chaos in our wake.
Another thing I'm noticing people starting to pick up on more and more is that a lot of Zarqawi's cannon fodder are Iraqis than has generally been appreciated, though I'm not sure at what point it became the consensus du jour among both analysts and the media that al-Qaeda is for some reason unwilling to recruit Iraqi jihadis into its ranks. As noted by Cordesman and any number of other commentators, one of the consequences of Saddam getting religion during the Gulf War was that any Sunni growing up in Iraq from 1991 to 2003 has been subjected to a stream of religious thought that, if not one and the same as that followed by al-Qaeda, is certainly highly sympathetic to that point of view with the United States as public enemy #1 in the Muslim world. Stephen Schwartz was also quite eager to note the speed with which any number of Wahhabi NGOs (some of them linked to al-Qaeda, if memory serves) set up shop inside Anbar in the wake of the invasion. Years from now when the situation in Iraq is settled one way or another, I have little doubt that anybody who's writing the history of the Iraqi insurgency (we'll have to wait and see whether it's in English or Arabic) is going to focus on Zarqawi and his followers every bit as much as anybody writing on the history of Yugoslav partisans during World War 2 is going to focus on Tito and the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. That's because Zarqawi, like Tito, is currently the center of the most ruthless and effective element of the Iraqi insurgency, has been for about 2 years now, and if anybody is going to succeed in kicking the US out (regardless of the results), it's him, which is why I think beating him should take top priority over the Baathists.
That's more or less the way I've always seen it, which is why I've regarded Zarqawi and his followers as our primary enemies in Iraq for quite sometime now. A lot of commentators and analysts bristle at that claim, arguing that the insurgency is far more complex than that. I'm sure it is, but the fact remains that Zarqawi's are still the most lethal and the most likely succeed at derailing the political process through its charming combination of suicide bombings and ling chi. All of the other insurgent groups that Cordesman and other commentators have mentioned can be dealt with through the traditional counter-insurgency methods, to a certain extent the same ones that Larry Diamond recommends in his book. Zarqawi, as Cordesman notes in no uncertain terms, we simply have to destroy.
Three other brief points ...
1. For those interested in more on the identity of the late, unmourned Abu Azzam al-Iraqi, Bill Roggio offers a detailed profile of the punk, including the claim by Iraqi national security advisor Muwaffaq Rubaei that he was responsible for the killing of upwards of 1,200 Iraqis. Bill's piece is pretty thorough, to which I would only add that he was also on the list of potential Zarqawi successors earlier this year. As Newsweek notes (see also Walid Phares's fisking), the claim that he was Zarqawi's second-in-command is open to criticism, particularly from people like Evan Kohlmann who's probably done the best job of keeping track of al-Qaeda in Iraq on the basis of open-source information than anybody else I've seen. Given his previous position as the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar province, I think it's probably appropriate to classify him as one of Zarqawi's generals and regard his capture as a very good thing. Keep in mind, if we accept Rubaei's figures at face value that's about 1/3 of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed achieved on 9/11. As for Kohlmann's criticism of announcing and then over-hyping the capture/killing of any number of second or third-tier al-Qaeda leaders (the most notorious example of which in my view was that of Abu Faraj al-Libi), I think it's an unfortunate artifact of the fact that the general public knows next to nothing about what al-Qaeda is and this is chosen as the best way to express it to the general public. I don't agree with it, but that's probably the price you pay for dealing with an uninformed public.
2. This Reuters piece is pretty good, but the description of Zarqawi as "self-sustained" is a fairly curious one given his obvious and demonstrable reliance on foreign fighters as suicide bombers by every study I've seen of the guy.
3. As long as I'm throwing out the argument that it's obvious that Zarqawi's our primary enemy in Iraq, let me throw out some others quick points, all of which I have stated before, that are sure to ranckle some analysts:
- Jemaah Islamiyah is down and splintered, but will eventually regenerate as long as it retains a safe haven in Mindanao. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, its
piousdenials to the contrary, is actively assisting and harboring both JI and Abu Sayyaf and has no intentions of honoring its cease-fire with the government.
- There is no appreciable distinction that can be made between Basayev's Caucasus fighters (now boasting Ingush and Dagestani contingents!), the Algerian GSPC, the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the broader al-Qaeda network.
- The majority of al-Qaeda "Golden Chain" financing infrastructure is still completely intact, as is most of the "Londonistan" network even after the 7/7 bombings. Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Safar al-Hawali, and Adel Batterjee all remain free men in the former country.
- Saad al-Faqih, Yasser al-Sirri, Mohammed al-Massari, and Abdullah el-Faisal are all al-Qaeda mouthpieces, some of which are less subtle than others.
It's clearly a mistake to "personalise" the leaders of the insurgency. History has shown that leaders of underground organisations are expendable. The capture of Saddam Hussein hasn't helped much, has it? The prolonged absence of Bin Laden hasn't stopped someone else running the al-Qaeda show, and the death or capture of Zarqawi will change little on the ground. The resistance is certainly broad-based and with multiple objectifs. A quick read of any Iraqi history will show a long pedigree of armed resistance to military occupation - Ottoman, British or American. Unfortunately, it seems none of the neo-cons have any time for reading history, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place.
Boz:
That's a nice narrative, and has been one of the primary arguments against taking the threat of Zarqawi seriously, but the fact is, especially in matters of assymetrical warfare, personalities do matter. It is certainly true that the insurgency isn't going to collapse in the event of Zarqawi's demise, but if you look at the name of his group, al-Qaeda in Iraq, it becomes pretty apparent that he is only an emissary or servant of a greater enemy. Killing Zarqawi isn't a catch-all for our problems in Iraq, but like killing the IMU leadership was for the violence in Uzbekistan, it sure helped.
Interestingly enough about the capture of Saddam, from what the Post article says, it seems the Baathists aren't really around much as a force on their own right these days. Wonder why that could be?
Dan,
Excellent analysis. You have been doing an great job tracking the (rather complex) composition of the folks we're fighting here.
It's unfortunate that major media no longer considers in-depth and long term military analysis of value (or at least not worth the expense). But sometimes, I think the expense might simply be the cost of giving up preconceptions and report facts on the ground, rather than continue to spin each new round of casualty figures in keeping with the "template."
No matter. As long as fine analysts such as you, Bill Roggio, and Chester stay focused on them, there will be at least some voices that speak truth into wehat would otherwise be silence, and ignorance.
Hmm... Judging from Zarquawi's history, how he constantly gets into power stuggles with superiors, how he likes to get on the video personally, Zarquawi seems much more of a megolomaniac than Bin Laden or others. It seems for him less about the cause, than about his ego. And I bet his organization is strucuted that way. So like while Bin Laden might be the equivelent of a general; kill him- his second takes his place with reletivly minor organizational disruption... I suspect Zarquawi runs his operation much more like a crime boss, or a cult of personality figure, keeping most of the authority and control vested in himself personally, with little or no real thought or planning given to the life of his organization after he's gone.
I suspect, unlike past sorts of 'turning points' (like the capture of Saddam and such), when Zarquawi himself is captured or killed, that actually will be more of like a strike at an Octopus's head, than a hydra's.
If anything, I'd say that bin Laden has way more of a cult of personality in the Muslim world than does Zarqawi. I think that there needs to be an appreciable distinction between cultivating a cult of personality vs. having a huge ego, though.
As to the issue of Zarqawi's organization, my impression of the man is that he runs things far more mafia-style than anything else. That runs into problems with shutting his operation down, as Doug Farah notes on the Counterterrorism blog today.
Boz: "A quick read of any Iraqi history will show a long pedigree of armed resistance to military occupation - Ottoman, British or American."
I think you read that a little too quick. You missed the fact that the Ottoman Turks who absorbed Iraq and ruled it for four centuries were Sunnis. The Iraqi rulers they wrested it from were Shi'ites.
So you could just as easily toss off this casual generalization: "A quick read of Iraqi history will show a long pedigree of Sunni oppression and violence against the majority Shi'ites, a tradition which Saddam and the so-called Iraqi insurgency have continued apace."
Which side are you on now, Boz?
"... it seems none of the neo-cons have any time for reading history, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten into this mess in the first place."
It would help critics to better understand this "mess" if they would stop pretending that Iraqis (and maybe brown persons in general) are a monolithic mass who all think alike - or rather, who all think like Robert Fisk. But then, they never did figure out that not all Vietnamese are alike.
Meanwhile, let's keep the division of responsibilities clear. It's the neo-cons' job to make history. It's your job to write irate letters to the editor about it.
Boz -- If I recall a couple of Mongols, Hulagu Khan and Tamerlane, seemed to have very little problem in Iraq. Of course they operated by mass and repeated slaughter to anyone who offered ANY resistance. The fact remains though that they destroyed Sunni Rule in Iraq/Baghdad pretty easily. Indeed if it had not been for struggles back at home Hulagu Khan would have ruled Egypt (for generations under his successors). Arabs (as opposed to Turks) declined in military effectiveness around 1200. Suleiman the besieger of Vienna was a Turk. Arab conquests in Spain and Sicily and Southern France and Italy were steadily reduced, even with a narrow resupply gap from North Africa to Spain.
Shining Path basically disappeared as a force once Fujimori captured it's leader. So that tends to undermine your thesis that people/personalities don't matter. I would argue marginally, they do, though a strong and international organization can compensate, they still pay a price for organizational effectiveness lost.
"Meanwhile, let's keep the division of responsibilities clear. It's the neo-cons' job to make history. It's your job to write irate letters to the editor about it."
Glen, I'm gonna steal that one. Its a keeper.
It's the neo-cons' job to make history.
That's history as characterized by Gibbon, "the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind".
You can have that, i'll take Clemenczeau's definition of war:
"War is a series of catastrophes that results in victory."