Say Anything Blog

Zarqawi and his terror goons are being marginalized.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11 - The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.

In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.

Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.

"Al Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."

The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.

The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.

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.

If "grudging passivity" is what we can get from Iraqi insurgents then so be it. We'll take it. Victory in Iraq has never had to mean the military defeat of all the insurgents. Victory in Iraq could also mean getting the Iraqi insurgency to lay down its guns and join the political process. With Sunni Arabs (who make up a good deal of the insurgency) already joining the political process and rejecting Zarqawi's calls to abandon it I would say that we are very, very close to victory in Iraq. All that remains to be done, in fact, is to leave Iraq secure enough to withstand attacks from people like Zarqawi.

If Zarqawi wants to continue attacking Iraqi forces after we've gone so be it, as long as Iraq is strong enough to stand against it. All it will do, I think, is make Iraqis more likely to embrace their democratic government and reject the oppression and toltalitarianism offered by al Qaeda.

iraq, insurgency, al qaeda, zarqawi