Iraqi Terrorists Talk To The Guardian

The Guardian has a piece up featuring leaders of some of Iraq's more formidable terrorist groups, Ansar al-Sunna and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, chief among them. It claims they are coming together to seek a political identity. The individuals met with the Guardian in Syria. And these individuals do not appear to be the same elements of those groups, which Colonel Petraeus mentions in his interview with Hugh Hewitt today, as beginning to co-operate with coalition forces. The men the Guardian talks with are being hunted down by our forces even now, which the paper makes clear.

My quick take is that the terrorist groups in Iraq are being beaten and are now splintering, the most anti-American elements of them attempting to use the media to pull off a coup and develop some form of alleged political legitimacy, just as Hamas and Hezbollah have done elsewhere in the Middle-east.

In the Guardian piece you'll see that their rallying cause is anti-Americanism and they brag about following soldiers individually, waiting for the opportunity to kill them.

I'd encourage you to read both pieces and think about this in context of what we are now seeing with Fatah versus Hamas, which is also mentioned in the Guardian piece. And also think of it in terms of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

I hope we have the good sense to understand what these terrorists are actually about and not make the mistake of confirming legitimacy on a new group in Iraq which will amount to little more than a Hamas or Hezbollah equivalent taking hold in Iraq. We've already seen the great harm such groups can do throughout the Middle-east. We need to stay the course and wipe them out, or risk creating precisely what we don't want in Iraq, another failed, bloody and divided country in the Middle-east over the longer term.

Comments

[chris]

Colonel Petraeus indeed. All of this cheerleading for a 'surge' that can only delay the inevitable should earn him a demotion.

[nowingker]

I'm okay w/Petraues, he chooses his words very well, the interviewer attempted many times to draw him into criticizing the critics of the war and he never did. Of course if you read him closely, the expectations he's set for the surge are pretty low.

It should go w/out saying that Dan, as usual, has misread the content, context, meaning and importance of both pieces, but they are both very informative for a change.

[narciso]

It's by Seaumas Milne, the former Marxist turned Islamist stooge. The fact that they're meeting in Syria, indicates that they are the ones working with MB elements against our troops.

[Rich Casebolt]

Actually, the facts on the ground would create the conditions for what Dan is describing, critics ...

"Anbar Rising"

"al-Ameriki tribe"

Google 'em ... if you dare.

What is "inevitible", is that history will prove the decision of this President to decisively engage Saddam Huessein and his fellow-travelers in terror to be prudent.