Trends in Iraq that much of the media misses

Strategy Page:

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After three years, the Sunni Arabs, who long dominated Iraq, most recently under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, are giving up. It took so long because of a quirk in Arab culture, one that encourages the support of lost causes. The term "cut your losses and move on" is not as popular in the Arab world as it is in the West. But even the slow learners in the Sunni Arab community had to finally confront some unfavorable trends. Chief among these was;

The Kurds and Shia Arabs have formed a national police force and army that is far more powerful than anything the Sunni Arab community can muster. Over the last year, Sunni Arabs realized that the police and army were in control of more and more Sunni Arab towns. This was a trend that could not be ignored. Added to that was the number of Kurds and Shia Arabs who had lost kin to Sunni Arab terror over the last three decades. Many of these people want revenge, and they all have guns. Many, especially those that belong to the police, or militias, are taking their revenge. The Sunni Arabs want protection, for they cannot muster enough guns to defend themselves. Now the Sunni Arabs want the Americans to stay, at least until there's some assurance that the Kurd and Shia Arab vengeance attacks have died down.

The alliance with al Qaeda was a disaster. These Islamic terrorists were obsessed with causing a civil war in Iraq, and they insisted on doing this by killing lots of Shia Arabs. The Sunni Arabs didn't want to kill lots of Shia Arabs, they wanted to rule them all once more. But that raised another contentious issue. While some Sunni Arabs were in favor of an Islam Republic, which al Qaeda insisted on, most Sunni Arabs wanted a more secular Sunni Arab dominated government. This dispute was never resolved, as the split between al Qaeda and the Sunni Arab community widened. At the moment, al Qaeda is not welcome in most Sunni Arab areas. That's "come near this place and we'll kill you" not welcome. This after al Qaeda tried to terrorize the Sunni Arab tribal leaders into compliance. Killing Sunni Arab tribal chiefs didn't work.

You can't kill enough Americans to scare them into leaving. Saddam, and most Iraqis, were convinced that, because of Vietnam (where 55,000 American died) and Somalia (where 18 died in 1993), the United States would withdraw if you killed enough of them. While that is sometimes true, it's good to remember that over a million Vietnamese died during the 1960s, and that 1993 battle in Mogadishu left over 500 Somalis dead as well. Moreover, this, "the Americans have no stomach for a fight" is nothing new. It's why Japan attacked in 1941, believing that if they beat up the Americans bad enough, the faint hearted Yankees would just go away. Hitler also believed the Americans would not fight. After three years, the Iraqi Sunni Arabs have discovered that the Americans can certainly fight, and the Yankees have also found ways to do it that involve extraordinarily low American casualties. This story has not really gotten the attention it deserves, but the Sunni Arabs have noticed. They have noticed that if you attack the Americans, chances are you will die, and the Americans will just keep on keeping on. It used to be that the Sunni Arabs could take heart from the occasional attack where they killed a few Americans. But no longer. Everyone knows the trend, and doesn't want to be another victim of it. Last month 32 Americans were killed in combat. The last time it was that low was in February 2004. Back then, the Sunni Arab tribes and al Qaeda had joined forces. Both of them had plenty of weapons, money and volunteers. Two years of bad trends have changed everything. The trend was that the Americans were much better at killing Sunni Arabs than Sunni Arabs were at killing Americans.

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There is more. Mainstream media has noticed the trend in fewer US deaths, but attributes it mainly to Iraqi forces taking over much of the combat patrolling. This is a mistake. Most of the deaths are noncombatants that are targeted because the enemy does not have the capacity to stand toe to toe with the new Iraqi army either. Last Sunday's operations in what the enemy called the "mosque massacre," turned into a one sided rout in which 16 enemy died and 18 were captured. The trend toward non combatant targets has actually been going on for several months, despite what anti war leaders like Murtha say, our troops are not the primary targets for the terrorist. As the Strategy Page points out, it is just the opposite.