Put these together. Hillary Clinton judges that the Insurgency in Iraq is Failing (hat tip: href="http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php?...
Put these together.
Hillary Clinton judges that the
Insurgency in Iraq is Failing (hat tip:
href="http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php?p=79">Austin Bay)
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said that much of Iraq was
"functioning quite
well" and that the rash of suicide attacks was a sign that the
insurgency was
failing. ... Clinton said the last time she visited Iraq in late 2003, she
traveled to the Green Zone by road from the international airport. Today,
security is so bad that none of the senators dared drive through Baghdad's
streets, even in armored cars. Aside from the Green Zone, their only glimpse
of the capital came from the relative safety of U.S. military
helicopters that
ferried them from the airport. "It's regrettable that the
security needs have
increased so much. On the other hand, I think you can look at the
country as a
whole and see that there are many parts of Iraq that are functioning quite
well," Clinton said.
Powerline asks: is a Ba'athist surrender in the works? It provides two
links. The first,
"U.S. in Secret Talks with Iraqi Insurgents" describes
alleged negotiations
between elements of the Ba'athist insurgency and US officials.
U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with
Iraq's Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported
on Sunday, citing Pentagon and other sources.
The magazine cited a secret meeting between two members of the U.S.
military and an Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam
Hussein's regime and the senior representative of what he called the
nationalist insurgency.
"We are ready to work with you," the Iraqi negotiator
said, according to
Time.
Iraqi insurgent leaders not aligned with al Qaeda ally Abu Mousab
al-Zarqawi told the magazine several nationalist groups composed of what the
Pentagon calls "former regime elements" have become open
to negotiating. The
insurgents said their aim was to establish a political identity that can
represent disenfranchised Sunnis.
The second link,
"Sunnis Seek Place in New Iraqi Government" recounts the
efforts by Sunni
leaders to get on the train as it is leaving the station.
Gathering in a central Baghdad hotel, about 70 tribal leaders from the
provinces of Baghdad, Kirkuk, Salaheddin, Diyala, Anbar and Nineveh, tried to
devise a strategy for participation in a future government. There was an air
of desperation in some quarters of the smoke-filled conference room.
"When we said that we are not going to take part, that
didn't mean that we
are not going to take part in the political process. We have to take part in
the political process and draft the new constitution," said
Adnan al-Duleimi,
the head of Sunni Endowments in Baghdad.
The available data suggests that the Sunni insurgents are still capable of
showing strength within their strongholds and menacing traffic on the Baghdad
streets. However, even within their bailiwicks, their capabilities are not
decisive. They have been unable to impede or even delay the political goals set
by the US as evidenced by their failure to stop the January 30 elections.
Moreover, they are unable to project any significant combat power in
Shi'ite and
Kurdish areas. Faced with the loss of oil revenues, a growing Iraqi security
force and the gradual depletion of their stored weapons and suffering
a terrible
attrition rate their relative power is irretrievably on the wane.
href="http://austinbay.net/blog/index.php?p=79">Austin Bay
recalls being in a Corps' Joint Operations Center(JOC) during his tour in Iraq
and watching the computer display reel out what was effectively a
gauge of enemy
losses, ticking like a taximeter.
The biggest display, that morning and every morning, was a spooling
date-time list describing scores of military and police actions undertaken
over the last dozen hours, Examples: "0331: 1/5 Cav, 1st
Cavalry Division,
arrests two suspects after Iraqi police stop car"; "0335 USMC
patrol vicinity
Fallujah engaged by RPG, returned fire. No casualties."
The spool went on and on and on, and I remember thinking :
"I know we're
winning." ... Every day coalition forces were moving thousands
of 18-wheelers
from Kuwait and Turkey into Iraq, and if the "insurgents" were lucky
they blew
up one. However, flash the flames of that one diesel rig on CNN and "oh my
God, America can't stop these guys" is the impression left in Boston, Boise,
and Beijing.
The regular newspapers have in their own way chronicled the insurgency's
decline. The new European friendliness towards the Bush administration; Kofi
Annan's pitiful attempt to claim credit for the Iraqi elections; America's
recent agressiveness towards Syria; Senator Clinton's newfound optimism; the
Ba'athist recent despair -- each chronicles after its fashion the story of
defeat -- though the reader is left to deduce who is defeated.
It will probably be many months before the insurgency finally flickers out.
Attempts will be made to extend its life through negotiations to win breathing
space, through renewed and ever more heinous attacks. Unexpected events or a
blunder may yet breathe life into it. But for the first time since terrorist
warfare was developed and perfected in the Algerian war it has met its match on
the battlefield. The vanquishing arms may have been American, but the
heart that
drove it was in large measure Iraqi.
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