Marines See Signs Iraq Rebels Are Battling Foreign Fighters

From The New York Times:

Marines patrolling this desert region near the Syrian border [of Karabila, Iraq] have for months been seeing a strange new trend in the already complex Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents, they say, have been fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba, on the border, to Qaim, farther west. The observations offer a new clue in the hidden world of the insurgency and suggest that there may have been, as American commanders suggest, a split between Islamic militants and local rebels.

This is very interesting. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the country became a magnet for just about every Islamic terrorist, fundamentalist, or anti-American Jihadists. Iraq became the place if you wanted to fight against the Americans. But in addition to the foreign fighters in Iraq, there has also been sprouting a home-grown Iraqi insurgency with a more nationalistic goal of driving the U.S. occupation forces out of Iraq. While both elements of the total insurgency wants to fight against the Americans, both elements are completely incompatible in their reasons and methods of achieving their goals.

Let's start with the foreign fighters. I would imagine most of the foreign insurgents fighting in Iraq have some terrorist training, or have belonged to the various Jihadists or terrorist groups within the Middle East. Ideology drives these fighters. These foreign fighters have experience in hit-and-run tactics against military forces (Such as Jihadist raids on Israeli military patrols in the occupied territories). These foreign fighters also have the experience and the ideology to conduct terror attacks against the civilian population. Pick up the paper any day, and there is a report of a car bomb, or a suicide bombing against a police target, or a target with causes extensive civilian casualties. These attacks will provide heightened media coverage of the insurgency--especially if a large number of civilians are killed or wounded. It is what the foreign fighters are skilled and excel at--to use terror to gain maximum media publicity in support of their cause.

In contrast, you have the home-grown Iraqi insurgency. This element of the insurgency is comprised of Iraqi citizens who are fighting to remove the American occupation forces. Nationalism drives these insurgents--they want to kick the Americans out of Iraq. What is important about this type of insurgency is that the Iraqi rebels need to convince the Iraqi civilian population to join their cause. They need to convince the civilians to come to their aid, in order to win. The problem is that every time a foreign terrorist's suicide bomb kills Iraqi civilians, that makes it much tougher for the Iraqi nationalistic rebels to convince the civilians to join their cause. That's the big rift.

This rift may have some positive implications for extracting the United States out of Iraq. The key here is to get those Iraqi nationalist insurgents to the bargaining table. The United States has to get them into the negotiations for the creation of the new Iraqi government. If those nationalistic insurgents are not involved in the governing process, then those insurgents may denounce the newly installed Iraqi government as a puppet to the U.S., and would continue fighting. The second thing the U.S. has to do is to give amnesty to all Iraqi insurgents--not the foreign fighters. The Iraqi insurgents are not terrorists--they are fighting to remove a foreign occupation force controlling their country, namely the United States. That amnesty is important, if the nationalists-insurgents are to consider coming to the negotiating table. Finally, the United States has to do one thing that the Bush White House and the Neo-conservatives from PNAC will refuse to do. And that is to dismantle the permanent bases for permanently stationing American troops in Iraq. By allowing this condition, it can show the Iraqi insurgents that the United States is committed to establishing a free, sovereign Iraqi government and country, and then leaving Iraq for the Iraqis.

Of course, there are conditions that the Iraqi nationalistic insurgents must also meet. The first is obviously to stop the fighting, establish a truce with the U.S. forces. The second is to secure the country, and especially the Iraqi borders to stop the flow of foreign fighters. And finally, all parties--the Iraqi insurgents, U.S. forces, and Iraqi police and army forces--have to get rid of the foreign fighters, in order to reduce the number of suicide terror attacks and civilian casualties.

Of course, these negotiated conditions for ending the insurgency will never be accepted--either by the Iraqi nationalistic insurgents, nor the Bush White House. Until then, the only thing to do is to wait and see what will happen with this rift between the ideological foreign fighters, and the Iraqi nationalistic insurgents.