Iraq's Divided Insurgents

by Mahan Abedin

By most statistical measures, the Arab Sunni insurgency in Iraq is stronger than ever, drawing upon an estimated 30,000-40,000 combatants and several times this number of informants and other active supporters. The death toll on coalition troops, Iraqi security forces, and civilians shows no signs of declining, while the economic costs of relentless insurgent violence and infrastructural sabotage have become staggering. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Iraq's GDP declined in 2005 (a stunning achievement in the light of the enormous amount of money being injected into the country).[1]

The insurgency has one glaring weakness, however - it is divided. A small network of mostly foreign Salafi jihadists, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is striving to turn Iraq into a springboard for global Islamist struggle, while an array of indigenous Arab Sunni groups with an Islamist-nationalist orientation are fighting to achieve conceivably realizable domestic political goals. Although driven by fundamentally different long-term agendas, both have shared the short-term objective of derailing the American-sponsored political transition in Iraq. This may be changing, however.

The Islamist-nationalist camp's tacit endorsement of Sunni participation in parliamentary elections in December indicates that it may be willing to end its rejection of the new Iraqi state (if not its fight against American forces) in exchange for political concessions. The recent spate of suicide bombings, coming amid Shiite-Sunni negotiations over the formation of a new government, suggests that the Salafi-jihadists will stop at nothing to prevent this accommodation.

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