Not This Looks Like Good News -- Sunnis Defending Shiites in Ramadi

The "insurgency" is losing some of its lustre for Iraqis. The goal of the foreign insurgents for several months has been to spark conflict between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis. That doesn't seem to be going so well.

WaPo reports:

BAGHDAD, Aug. 14 -- Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said. The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of six American soldiers.

Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.

Read it here.

Iraqi tolerance for Zarqawi's exremists has never been more than an alliance of convenience. As it becomes more and more clear that the US has no long-term goal of occupying Iraq the rationale for that alliance is disappearing and the "insurgents" are finding themselves isolated.

It's a long-term process, but progress is being made. I'm glad the MSM is taking notice.

Juan Cole thinks this is only a temporary split -- basically a spat between Salafis and tribal leaders over local control -- and that the two will continue to cooperate against the US forces. True, but only so long as the tribal leaders continue to see the US as less of a threat to their power than the "insurgents."

Read Cole's comments here.

Bill Roggio points out that there have been several such incidents in areas near Ramadi, that local leaders vocally resent the intrusion of Zarqawi's "foreigners" into their affairs, that many Sunni religious authorities are supporting the new constitutional process, and that Zarqawi has issued threats against these Sunni leaders. This makes the whole thing sound a good deal more important than Cole allows.

Read Roggio's comments here.

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway observes that "the impulse that, whatever their differences, Iraqis must defend other Iraqis from outsiders is a necessary part of institutionalizing Iraqi nationalism."

Of course, opponents of the war have often asserted [misapplying the supposed "lessons of Vietnam"] that the "insurgents" are "nationalists."

On the varied origins of the "insurgents" see here.