Iraq again. Anyone see this article in the NYTimes today?

[TayTay]

From Sen. Kerry speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on 12/8/05:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9390/real_security_in_a_post911_world.html

The jihadists are the least present. The president finally admitted that. For two and a half years, we’ve been fighting in America about the war on terror, the central front, jihadists, but finally the administration acknowledged what we’ve all been saying for a long period of time. The jihadists are the lowest percentage of insurgents.

And if you talk to Shi’a and talk to Kurds and talk to Sunni — and those of us who have gone over there have — they don’t want those folks there. You get those folks standing up for themselves, and Zarqawi and company are not going to last long in Iraq.

Now, read this article in today's New York Times. It details a war within the insurgency in Iraq and how the Americans are trying to enlist the Iraqis in their fight to take Al Qaeda out of the picture.

American and Iraqi officials believe that the conflicts present them with one of the biggest opportunities since the insurgency burst upon Iraq nearly three years ago. They have begun talking with local insurgents, hoping to enlist them to cooperate against Al Qaeda, said Western diplomats, Iraqi officials and an insurgent leader.

It is impossible to say just how far the split extends within the insurgency, which remains a lethal force with a shared goal of driving the Americans out of Iraq. Indeed, the best the Americans can hope for may be a grudging passivity from the Iraqi insurgents when the Americans zero in on Al Qaeda's forces.

But the split within the insurgency is coinciding with Sunni Arabs' new desire to participate in Iraq's political process, and a growing resentment of the militants. Iraqis are increasingly saying that they regard Al Qaeda as a foreign-led force, whose extreme religious goals and desires for sectarian war against Iraq's Shiite majority override Iraqi tribal and nationalist traditions.

While American and Iraqi officials have talked of a split for months, detailed accounts of clashes were provided by men claiming to be local insurgents.

NY Times Insurgent Article

[karynnj]

1. It made sense when Kerry said it -

I wonder if Bush resents Kerry being prescient (and right) on so many things. At some point you would expect the press to see this.

[ProSense]

2. Thanks for posting these two together TayTay.

What I find interesting is Kerry makes a major speech in December about the difference between the jihadists and the Iraqi insurgents, and points out that the former represents a small percentage of the fighting force, then the NYT writes an article a month later and doesn't mention Kerry's speech at all.

[TayTay]

3. Well, to be fair, others have noted this.

But that speech in Dec was extremely good and pointed out a lot that is the frame for what is going on over in Iraq and the greater ME. I think the Bushies know this, they are just so damned arrogant at believing that they know how to deal with everything that they don't notice something publicly unless it suits their PR purposes. (How awful is that.)

If we had real oversight and accountability in Congress, this would have come out. But we don't.

[ProSense]

6. Well these terms

courtesy of the DSCC come to mind:

Rubberstamp Republicans

Stepford Congress: A startling 91% of Senate Republicans, 80% of House Republicans voted in sync with Bush White House in 2004

http://www.dscc.org/news/national/20051117_rubberstamp/index.html

[blm]

4. Another great GD post. Perfect example of NYT ignoring Dem efforts

.

[TayTay]

5. I haven't had time to read GD

This isn't on it? This is a very big story. This is what is happening in Iraq and this is how we might actually get some withdrawal of some of our troops. (How do we stabilize those provinces? What is the good and bad that will come out of this?)

Amazing. Everyone talks about Iraq, but they just want to argue platitudes. Sigh!