The original Anbar Awakening stories were coming out last summer when initial reporting indicated that the tribal forces were starting to arrange local and temporary cease fires with US forces. These tribal forces wanted a deal with one of their foreign enemies to go after their other foreign enemies, AQI and other foreign jihadis because those guys were a greater economic threat. AQI and their supporters were trying to muscle in on either direct smuggling routes, or the usually more lucrative protection racket. Throw in the lack of respect for local customs, and we get the Anbar Awakening Story where the enemy (with a fat wallet) of my enemy is one of my bankers strategy seems to be paying off in a short term drop in violence.
However AQI has never been a big part of the Sunni Arab insurgencies against the US military and the Baghdad central governments. Most estimates have AQI and other foreign jihadi groups as being responsible for less than 10% of the violence, with the remainder being Sunni Arab nationalists, ex-Baath'ists, criminal gangs, neighborhood defense groups, and Shi'ite militias. So what else may or may not change if AQI is marginalized... well
Hannah Allam at McClatchey is saying not much:
<...>
As
Cernig pointed out earlier this week, reporting over at the Atlantic and through a
grunt's blog shows that more of the same is happening. The reason why violence is down in Anbar is that the protection rackets are the undisputed champions of Anbari economic life, and the US military is funding and protecting leading members of these rackets.
So combine this with the hints of a coup, how are we promoting democracy again?
Who is the US Fighting in Iraq?
"Boys, some as young as 11, now outnumber foreign fighters at U.S. detention camps in Iraq."
Sunnis cool on Iraq political deal
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