[Irak] Nationalisme onderschat

[Gatara]

Iraq insurgency: Underestimating nationalism

Perhaps the most misunderstood militants in Iraq are the nationalist guerrillas, who were viewed a year ago as mainly former regime officials (mostly Sunni) who had the most to lose by a democratic (and largely Shiite) government in Iraq. While it is true that the nationalist movement is mostly Sunni and includes former soldiers and regime members, it also is clear that any Baathist orientation the movement might have is largely irrelevant. Iraqi tribal sources say even those nationalist guerrillas who associate themselves with the Baathist Party are not trying to preserve the unity of the party or make it a leading force in the nationalist movement. Moreover, sources say, the vast majority of Baathists in the nationalist ranks are convinced the future of Iraq and the future of the Baath Party have nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. The continuation of the insurgency, and its increased effectiveness over the last year, is more a result of a growing distaste for Western occupation then any loyalty to the former Iraqi ruler or his political party. With Shiites a majority in Iraq, some Sunni insurgents are naturally motivated by fear that they would lose power in any democratically elected government. Members of a former ruling minority suddenly faced with the rise of the Shiites, a once-oppressed majority, might want to go out fighting. In any case, in spite of the fact that most nationalist guerrillas are Sunnis, like Hussein, the former Iraqi leader has had little to do with inspiring or sustaining nationalist insurgent operations. So far, of the three insurgent movements in Iraq - nationalist guerrillas, Shiite militants and jihadists - nationalist insurgents have had the most significant impact on the US-led war effort. However, this impact has had more to do with the military aspects of the campaign than US political decision-making. The movement posing the greatest potential for influencing events strategically in Iraq is the Shiite resistance. If it expands beyond Muqtada Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army to embrace other Shiite segments of Iraqi society, and if it is blessed by the country's top Shiite religious authority, then the Shiite guerrillas will dominate the insurgency. At this stage of the war, one could argue the impact of the Shiite insurgency is mainly political while the impact of the nationalist insurgency is mainly military. Indeed, nationalist guerrillas are, and likely will remain, the most skilled, organised and numerous of the insurgent forces fighting the coalition. Barring a general Shiite uprising, the outcome of the coalition's drawn-out and exhaustive fight with nationalist guerrillas, likely to last several years, will ultimately decide the victor in Iraq. If the Shiites rise on a large scale, however, it will be their fight with the coalition that determines the outcome of the war. In any event, the nationalist guerrillas likely will continue to influence US strategy in at least one important way. In the near term and likely long term, if Washington ever wants to use its military presence in Iraq to project power elsewhere in the Middle East, its forces cannot remain mired in a counterinsurgency. Since it is the Sunni-led nationalist movement that provides the bulk of insurgent forces, the United States must decisively beat or check this movement, preferably with Shiite and Kurdish help. As a superpower, of course, the United States can strike Saudi Arabia or Syria any time it wants, but it cannot do so effectively with a nationalist-led insurgency unabated in Iraq. On the operational level, it also is the nationalist guerrillas who have the greatest influence on US decisions regarding force structure, weapon systems and equipment used in Iraq. Deadly attacks by nationalist guerrillas not only make the Pentagon pay more attention to such innovations as better battlefield intelligence capabilities and up-armoured Humvees, they also influence US troop deployments worldwide, as well as national security and strategic military planning. (Only later will we know what military actions or demonstrations in other parts of the world had to be cancelled or postponed because of the growing guerrilla war in Iraq.) In the end, it will be the nationalist guerrillas who will have done more to stretch and shape US forces and their resources than any other movement in Iraq. In many ways, the nationalist guerrilla influence in Iraq seems less spectacular than that of the Shiite guerrillas with their thunderous urban uprisings or the jihadists with their suicide bombings. It is true that two Al-Sadr-led Shiite uprisings in April and August and September 2004 forced the United States to respond with major counteroffensives, but the Shiites never caused the United States much pain militarily. On the other hand, almost all major US operations in Iraq, from the Ramadan counteroffensive in 2003 to two major assaults against Fallujah to the quelling of uprisings in Mosul, have been instigated by Sunni-led nationalist guerrillas. While the jihadist bombings, in particular, have a demoralising effect on Iraqi government forces, it is the systematic and dogged attacks by nationalist insurgents that have caused government forces to crumble, leaving US troops without meaningful local support. Major desertions of Iraqi troops and officers in Fallujah and Samarra occurred when they were faced with fighting nationalist insurgents. While some government troops are too frightened to face nationalist guerrillas in combat, others refuse to fight them out of sympathy for their cause - namely, the liberation of Iraq. This has led to the growing clandestine cooperation between nationalist guerrillas and Iraqi security personnel, who provide insurgents with intelligence about the movements and vulnerabilities of US forces. Indeed, the nationalist insurgents have amply demonstrated their ability to alter US behavior in Iraq. The nationalist-led 2003 Ramadan offensive, for example, made the US command commit the bulk of its combat forces to simultaneous counterinsurgency operations across the country for the first time in the war. In Al Fallujah in April and May, nationalist-led insurgents made the United States "retreat" for the first time in the war (for political as well as military reasons) while the insurgents held their ground. This led the guerrillas to believe - rightly or wrongly - that US troops could be defeated in set-piece battles (emboldened nationalists tried to reiterate this point when they turned Baghdad's major Haifa Street into a no-go zone for US troops for several months in 2004). The first battle of Al Fallujah also changed the way the United States deals with insurgents. Now Washington would negotiate, as well as fight, though it remains unclear whether negotiating will yield the kind of results Washington wants. The second battle for Fallujah in November and December 2004 - which is still simmering -marked the first time in the war when one battle created a large flare-up of fighting in other cities. Fallujah II also was the first battle in the war where guerrilla commanders - virtually all nationalists - were able to deploy insurgent forces on an operational level, shifting some units from Fallujah to Ramadi and Mosul and turning the latter locations into major battlegrounds as well, thus causing the US command to redeploy and significantly reinforce its combat units. (Stratfor)
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/today/analysis_s3.php

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Oud nieuws, vind je niet

[Gatara]

Gauloises schreef op 26-12-2004 @ 13:12 :
Oud nieuws, vind je niet

njah, tis achtergrond info. Je kunt je afvragen of de drijfveren van de strijders idd deze is (tegen westerse bezetting en niet zozeer pro-regime Saddam) en waarom de sjiieten bv. t oogluikender toestaan, die bezetting.

[dingokoning]

ik denk niet dat het zozeer t nationalisme is maar meer het anti-amerikaan politiek die osama bin laden predikt. 't Zijn vooral de fundamentalistjes e.d die aanslagen plegen omdat ze zoals ome osama een oorlog voeren tegen de amerikanen.

en ja de sjiieten zijn onderdrukt toen ze onder saddam waren en nu hebben ze meer vrijheid en is er veel chaos in eht land, daar maken ze gebruik van. Die bezetting kan ze nog goed te pas komen..

Gatara schreef op 26-12-2004 @ 14:00 :
njah, tis achtergrond info. Je kunt je afvragen of de drijfveren van de strijders idd deze is (tegen westerse bezetting en niet zozeer pro-regime Saddam) en waarom de sjiieten bv. t oogluikender toestaan, die bezetting.

Dat van die sjiieten is makkelijk te verklaren, zij zijn de grootste groep. In een democratisch systeem trekken zij zonder enig probleem de gehele macht naar zich toe. Dan heb je als het ware een democratisch gelegitimeerde sjiieten dictatuur. De sjiietische leiders wachten rustig af.

Over het algemeen zou ik de drijfveren van de strijders vooral classificeren als arabisch nationalisme.