Changes in attitudes and lattitudes in Sunni Iraq

The Belmont Club looks at some of the discussions at one of my favorite sites--Small Wars Journal--and examines how a new sense of freedom of operation has meant greater cooperation between the Sunnis and the Marines. Wretchard also includes this remarkable transcript from a formerly anti US TV station:

...

But a few days ago, Al-Zawra began running some anti-Al-Qaeda messages in its news ticker, and the jihadists began to mumble and some even penned invectives against al-Jebouri.

Yesterday, however, Al-Jebouri gave a whole anti-Al-Qaeda speech and this drove the jihadists berserk: the premier jihadist organ had begun to badmouth the jihad!

These are al-Jebouri’s main points:

-Al-Qaeda provoked the Shi'as and then failed to protect the Sunnis from retaliation.

-Al-Qaeda is forcing all the other insurgent groups to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq under Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and is punishing the hold-outs.

-Al-Qaeda is killing and abducting Sunni notables who were part of the insurgency.

-Al-Qaeda wants to impose a Taliban-like Islamic State on Iraqi Sunnis, who are the worse for it—they don’t even have enough to eat.

-Al-Qaeda killed an emissary sent by al-Jebouri, who has wanted to negotiate with al-Baghdadi.

-Iraqi Sunnis across the board are preparing to clash with Al-Qaeda as is already happening in Anbar Province.

Al-Jebouri gets into details and names names, and he addresses his speech to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, questioning the validity of pledging allegiance to an anonymous phantom.

...
The transcript was provided by the Talisman Gate blog. With all this substantive evidence of change in Iraq, it is now the Democrats who are covering their eyes and ears to what is happening. Good news in Iraq is now bad news for their political position. They are now even more eager to lose before others find out how things have turned against al Qaeda. They are eager to get out before al Qaeda loses. I am reminded of how the Washington Post kept running a woefully out of date pessimistic intelligence report about Anbar province as the Sheiks were rallying to our side.

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