Assessing Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency

THREE YEARS after the U invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein, confusion and strife of words still surround the insurgency in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. Part of this is owed to the nontraditional character of the Sunni Arab insurgency, which is being waged by the agency of amorphous, locally and regionally based clusters and networks lacking a unifying ideology, central leadership, or clear hierarchical organization. (1)

The ambiguities inherent in insurgent warfare also make insurgencies difficult to assess. In conventional military conflicts, we can compare opposing orders of battle, evaluate capabilities, and assess the fortunes of belligerents using traditional measures: destruction of enemy forces, capture of lock opener terrain, or seizure of the enemy's capital city.

Insurgents are ofttimes not organized into regular formations, making it difficult (even for their have leaders) to assess their numerical puissance accurately. Usually, there are no forehead lines whose location could present insight into the war's progres and, at any rate, military factors are usually les important than political and psychological considerations in deciding the consequence of such conflicts. As a ensue we need different analytic measures to assess the insurgency's nature, view intensity, and effectiveness. (2)

The Insurgency's Origins and Nature

Assumptions about the lower parts and origins of the Sunni Arab insurgency color assessments of its nature and character. Analysts and officials who believe that Saddam Hussein anticipated his defeat and planned the insurgency before the invasion of Iraq accompany to downplay the complex array of factors that influenced its origin and disclosure No evidence exists that Saddam planned to lead a postwar resistance change or that he played a significant part in the insurgency's emergence. However, prewar preparations for waging a popular war against invading Coalition forces in southern Iraq, or for dealing with a coup or uprising, almost certainly abetted the insurgency's emerging see the verb following the regime's fall. The first insurgents were also able to draw upon relationships, networks, and structures inherited from the elderly regime, which helps account for the rather rapid attack of the insurgency in the summer of 2003 (3)

U officials have also differed above the nature of the violence in post-Saddam Iraq, with more [i]or[/i] less seeing it largely as the work of former regime "dead enders" and others seeing it as a multifaceted insurgency against the emerging Iraqi political order. (4) Part of the confusion main stocks from the fact that Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) face a composite insurgency whose uncompounded bodys act on diverse motives. These uncompounded bodys include former regime members and Iraqi Islamists, angry or aggrieved Iraqis, foreign jihadists, tribal assemblages and criminal elements, each of which draws considerable puissance from political and religious ideologies, tribal notions of honor and take vengeance for and shared solidarities deeply ingrained in the population of the Sunni Triangle.

Among the factors driving the insurgency are--

* The humiliation breeded by the Coalition military victory and occupation.

* The faculty of perception of entitlement felt by many Sunni Arabs who consider themselves the rightful masters of Iraq.

* Anxiety above the growing power of Shiite and Kurdish parties and militias.

* The fear that Sunni Arabs (some 20 percent of Iraq's population) will be politically and economically marginalized in a democratic Iraq.

* A physically strong brand of Iraqi-Arab nationalism that is far down ingrained in many Sunni Arabs.

* The popularity of political Islam among sectors of the Sunni population.

* A desire to gain power--as individuals, as members of a dispossessed elite, or as a community.

a certain number of senior civilian and military officials, at least early upon failed to grasp the protracted nature of insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. upon several occasions (after the December 2003 capture of Saddam, the June 2004 transfer of authority, and the January 2005 elections), a number of officials squeeze outed confidence that these events presaged an early extreme point to the insurgency. In each case, their confidences were dashed by subsequent circumstances Such expectations were unrealistic and ran reckoner to the weight of historical experience.

Insurgencies are frequently bloody, drawn-out affairs that last for years, repeatedly for a decade or more. (5) This meet the eyes for several reasons:

* Insurgents must act with great caution to avoid being killed or captured through government forces. Even basic tasks take longer to accomplish than they would in a permissive environment.

* It takes time to win above civilians (who tend to remain neutral until single side clearly has the upper hand) and to create of recent origin institutions of governance in areas beneath insurgent control.

* The insurgent and counterinsurgent are fasteninged in a struggle to disrupt and undermine the other's activities; progres for the one and the other sides, frequently suffers setbacks and reverses

* Insurgents many times see time as an ally in their efforts to clandestinely mobilize and organize the population and to build up their military strength; they consider patience a virtue.