The Meaning of Fallujah

[Geee]

PJMedia:

Al-Qaeda is back in Fallujah and Ramadi, where we defeated them in the recent past. Everyone in the Middle East knew it, and they all knew al-Qaeda was on the ropes. Recruitment was more difficult, fund-raising likewise, and the cult of bin Laden was decidedly wobbly.

 

That’s what happens when a messianic mass movement — like Islamism — loses. People start asking all sorts of annoying questions. If your past victories were due to Allah’s support, a demonstration of His recognition that you were the sole practitioners of the right sort of Islam, what are we to make of your defeat? Has Allah abandoned you? Has he joined the Marines?

 

In the ebb and flow of the global war in which we are so reluctantly engaged, that was a moment to be seized. Instead, our new leaders judged it was the perfect time to walk away. They have been walking away ever since. And they had plenty of support, from deep within American tradition, from that oft-fatal conviction that peace is normal and war is an aberration, when the opposite defines human history. So we walked away, abandoning those who had staked their future to America’s commitment to freedom, and giving hope and time to our enemies, who regrouped and attacked again. Thus, Iraq, where the slaughter often exceeds the death toll in Syria. Thus, Syria itself. And Lebanon.

Al-Qaeda, and others like them, can now say, “You see, Allah is indeed with us. We are stronger than ever. Much stronger. We used to have bands of terrorists, but today we have armies. The Americans have run away from Iraq, where our flag now flies, and they are running away from Afghanistan, where the Taliban are preparing to impose God’s will. The future is clear. We will win. Join us, or perish.”

That is the meaning of Fallujah. And everyone in the Middle East knows it. These Americans can win some battles, but they do not have the stomach to win the war.

[Valin]

@Geee

The good thing about our "brothers and sisters" in Al Qaeda and other like groups is, they always over play their hand, and piss off the locals. This is one of the things we are seeing in Al Anbar today. While the Sunni's there may not like the Shia Maliki government, they really don't like the Salifists.

[Valin]

Why Al-Qaeda in Iraq Is Malikis Problem, Not Americas

Peter Mansoor

January 8, 2014

 

 

Recent events in Iraq are deeply disappointing, especially to those U.S. and coalition service personnel and their Iraqi allies who sacrificed so much to defeat al-Qaeda during the surge of 2007-2008. The potential creation of a terrorist caliphate in the Levant is of vital concern to the United States, creating difficult policy choices for the Obama administration. Al Qaedas resurgence, however, should come as no surprise given the backsliding of the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the jihadist safe havens created by the ongoing civil war in Syria.

 

Malikis targeting of a Sunni lawmaker, Ahmed al-Awlani, who was arrested on December 28 in an altercation with Iraqi security forces in which his brother was killed, triggered the most recent violence. Maliki followed up by sending in troops to disband an anti-government Sunni protest camp in Ramadi, the second such crackdown in recent months. Taking advantage of the deep dissatisfaction created by these and other events, al-Qaeda militants seized portions of the western Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. Al-Anbar Province, once the poster child of success for the tribal Awakening and the surge, is at war again.

 

(Snip)

 

Despite this promising beginning, the situation in Iraq began to spiral downward after the election of 2010 when the winner, Ayad Allawi, was sidelined in favor of another Maliki term in a backroom deal cut in Tehran. Sunni Arabs became disenchanted with the political process, increasingly dominated by an authoritarian prime minister who used the security forces and courts to pursue his political agenda. The withdrawal of the last U.S. combat forces from Iraq in 2011 gave Maliki a green light to further these policies; his pursuit of Tarik al-Hashemi and other Sunni politicians deepened Sunni discontent. The way was open for the revitalization of al-Qaeda in Iraq, once left for dead after the manifest successes of the Awakening and the surge.

 

(Snip)