INSIDE THE IRAQI RESISTANCE.

DRAFT--SECOND

INSIDE THE IRAQI RESISTANCE.

I just finished reading a two-part article by Himam (sp.) Hasan in http://www.daralhayat.net/, 2/25 and 26, 2006.

By way of headline, the article is titled, “Saddam was first to bring in Islamic organizations then he regretted [his decision]...Al-Qaeda armed the tribes at first...and the Faloujah battle [was] the spark that drove a wedge between al-Zarqawi and the Anbar.”

(Note: I’m not sure whether the author is male or female. Accordingly, I will refer to him/her by the family name, Hasan. I apologize for not putting in the effort to find out whether the first name belongs to a man or a woman.)

Hasan’s report was based on accounts by Arab Sunni informants (as in anthropology not as in police investigations.) The informants, I would think, would talk relatively freely to a (probably Sunni) reporter for a Saudi-financed newspaper. Hence the informative nature of the article.

The article, however, adds only some insight. The main reason: Either Hasan is covering up for regional countries or Hasan’s interlocutors are.


ARAB AND MUSLIM VOLUNTEERS

One source, for example, a former Iraqi intelligence officer, tells the author that “the drawing [into Iraq] of the Arab volunteers took place through regional intelligence services and religious organizations that were active in the Jihadi Salafi [movement] and which were a link to...”

As you may have noted, the former intelligence officer uses the plural to describe the sources of help. But specific he/she is not. From the press, we do know, for instance, that Syrian intelligence was one source of foreign Arab fighters. Was one of the many Iranian services another? Could it be that Iranian intelligence would inject into Iraq Salafis who are hateful of Shias? Not an impossibility since Iran should have an interest in failing the U.S. Iraq project, come what may. But then why aren’t the Arab Sunni “sources” saying it?

Could Sudan have been another source? Yemen?

One would think that a knowledgeable former intelligence officer would be specific about what intelligence services were involved. It couldn’t be the Saudi, since the Kingdom assisted (albeit passively) in the invasion. (Saudi Arabia provided the 'Ar'ar airport in the north to the U.S. and allowed U.S. Special Forces to conduct operations inside Iraq.) But was a Saudi religious network involved?

General media sources have told us that Saudis were active in the Iraqi resistance. Who got them there? We have to presume (a safe presumption) that their government knew about their travel to Iraq. Al-Hayat, Hasan’s employer, covered their news, after all. What network, Saudi or Arab, specifically eased their transport into Iraq? Hasan and Hasan’s sources don’t reveal much about this.

Could the Lebanese have helped? If so, it would only be that part of the Lebanese intelligence services that is beholden to Syria. The Egyptians, fully servile to the U.S. (and accused of having assisted in falsifying intelligence to justify the invasion of an Arab country), could not have been the ones. They woudn't dare. Their state (and possibly their people) would starve if American money and wheat were interrupted.

You get the point: High frustration. What a waste. Hasan already was inside the insurgency, yet missed out on the chance to be insightful. SaudiPolitics understands the constraints Hasan was under, since the sponsoring paper was Saudi-financed. Still, Al-Hayat is often used by Saudi intelligence in this or that campaign. Why couldn’t Hasan take advantage of that? Why could't Hasan talk about countries that Saudi Arabia wouldn't care that they be mentioned?

(A part of the answer could be that King Abdallah had put an end to the use by the Kingdom's pro-American wing of its foreign policy establishment of al-Hayat in tht wing's anti-Syrian campaign. The paper's editors could have done some self-censorship about other sources/countries.)

Hasan does a wonderful job categorizing the various Arab Sunni resistance groups and their progression in the period spanning the beginning of the invasion to the present. There must be somewhere a translation of the article for those who are interested in these details. (It's too much to do here.)


THE AMERICAN INVASION UNLEASHES THE IRAQI ISLAMISTS


One compelling result of the invasion–which bespeaks tons about the mediocrity of those advising the Bush Administration–was that it (the invasion) unleashed a tsunami of a Sunni Islamist torrent. This torrent had been bottled up, ready to burst; but it would not dare challenge the Hussein government. These Sunni fundamentalists replaced the government’s religious leader almost instantly after U.S. troops entered Iraq and its government collapsed: : “[T]he religious figures who hold Salafi beliefs stood at the forefront [of the resistance] bringing down the religious figures which owed their allegiance to the [Hussein] government.” Hamas in power, you could say, in yet another country.


DID SADDAM HUSSEIN PREPARE FOR THE WAR OF RESISTANCE?

One of Hasan’s sources insisted that the Hussein government had not prepared for the resistance/insurgency. That source cited as proof the alleged relative dearth of the funding for that insurgency. But fear not: Al-Qaeda soon arrived. It entered Iraq, the source said, with a system of organization that was superior, and with better funding.

We learn (indirectly) that Egypt lent the United States a hand in repressing the Iraqi Arab Sunni resistance/insurgency. What does Egypt care? What do any of them care? Let Empire hang itself. Its mandarins order the foreign Uncle Toms to do this or that to help mobilize the American public. The Uncle Toms are willing to accommodate, for a price. And Empire hangs itself.

The one piece of evidence which Hasan cites was the deportation back to Iraq, from Egypt, of a certain S. S[adh], one of Hussein’s closest escorts, who the U.S. imprisoned on his return. This man revealed that the former President was able to secure some financing for the early resistance. He gave the leaders of the resistance around $1 billion. Sadly for the insurgency, he reported, Hussein’s lieutenants took most of the money and ran to Syria.

Still: One billion dollars! That’s an amount that might indicate that the former President had in fact very possibly prepared for the war of resistance.


AL-QAEDA COMES UP WITH MONEY

At any rate, here again, al-Qaeda made up for the loss.

People who “are close to the Zarqawi organization,” Hasan tells us, have asserted that Zarqawi was able to use al-Qaeda’s network in the Gulf, North Africa, and Syria to finance his operations.

Once again, Hasan and his knowledgeable sources leave us hanging. These sources, so “close to al-Zarqawi,” and talking to Hasan, deny us the specifics of who in fact was providing the financing. As SaudiPolitics had asserted in earlier issues, an insurgency of the Iraqi magnitude is an expensive affair. (Remember the expensive U.S.-Saudi sponsorship of the Afghani resistance to the Soviets–now Russians?) So its financing couldn’t be in the millions. It had/has to be in the hundreds of millions, at the least.


COMPETITION TO ATTRACT FIGHTERS

The second Faloujah battle caused a rift between Zarqawi and what Hasan calls the “Islamic nationalists”–what this newsletter has referred to as the “Islamic Baath”–the new and younger Baath. This rift could’ve put an end to any rapport between the two but for the alleged ferocity of U.S. troops in their occupation of the city–what “one of the city’s sons called American ‘barbarism’.”

One phenomenon that strikes the reader of Hasan’s article is the competition for fighters among the many groups of the insurgency, what Hasan’s interlocutors refer to as ijtizab–“attraction of [fighters]” It reminded me of the principle that an organization needs continued small victories to keep and expand the membership.


THE U.S. NEGOTIATES WITH THE INSURGENTS

Hasan covers the negotiations between the U.S. and the resistance which took place through third parties and directly at the Abu Ghraib prison. These negotiations, for public policy purposes, belie an American strategic weakness: The U.S. will find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the expectation of the three main constituents of Iraqi pluralism. As much as the American negotiators wanted to buddy up to the insurgent leaders (minus al-Qaeda’s), they could not deliver on some important issues because they had to please their two other allies: the Kurds and the Shias.

According to “Iraqi observers,” U.S. intelligence and representatives of the National Security Council in 2005 had adopted the idea of conciliation with the Iraqi resisters. They had engaged in talks with them at the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Boca (sp.)–and at such places as Cairo, Amman, Moscow, the UAE, and Beirut.

But Hasan hastens to note that not much can be said about these meetings except that at each site they involved different representatives/segments of the Arab Sunnis. But here Hasan adds some insight, albeit inadvertently: In meetings in Amman, for example, tribal leaders were America’s interlocutors; in Moscow: former officials of the Hussein government. In Beirut: Islamic and Baathist leaders who lived abroad. In Cairo and Sharm al-Sheikh, Hasan speculates, those closest to the insurgency met up with the Americans. The (inadvertent) insight: Could some of these countries be paying off the various segments (according to where its contacts are most active) of the insurgency? And that should include Jordan and Egypt which could have passed U.S. money on to insurgent groups to tame and/or divide the insurgency. But the money, of course, could have been used for other reasons, including operatioins against U.S. troops. No Congressional Budget Office to audit the mandarins’ check-writing.



WHERE'S THE MONEY COMING FROM?

Hasan’s article, though informative, doesn’t really help us understand one of the crucial aspects of the insurgency: its financing. We’re left to speculate: Is Russia passing money to the old Baathists? If it is, wouldn’t one expect a less Islamic insurgency? Maybe not. Are some of Saudi Arabia’s rich passing money on? If they are, can they dispatch hundreds of millions of dollars? Are others in the Gulf doing it? There’s no question in my mind that the entire Arab world–the public, that is, which includes the rich and the poor–would give and give generously to defend Iraq against what it sees as a naked act of aggression against an Arab and Muslim country. Still, can this public, independent of its oil-rich governments, come up with hundreds of millions of dollars?

Could Iran be passing money on to a part of the insurgency? Could it be supporting Shias and Sunni takfiris at the same time? We do know one thing for certain: Iran cannot afford to have Big Brother next door, however much the two negotiate in secret or through third parties. We also know that Iran is very popular among the Arab Sunni public, standing up as it is to Israel and its sponsor, Empire. (The Arab public has conveniently forgotten that Iran actively eased the U.S. invasion of Iraq.) Accordingly, it wouldn’t be farfetched that Iran would finance an arm of that public: the Salafi part of the Iraqi insurgency. I’m speculating.


THE FUTILITY OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY

Finally, a note of caution: This newsletter doesn’t believe in anything called counter-insurgency. Though it creates jobs that pay better than those at Target or Wal Mart, it tends to displace politics and keep minds closed. The Israelis have been at it for decades, to no use. And they will be at it for the next centuries. Do we want to be in the same predicament, running an idiotic and costly war among an ocean of people who mistrust us?

Though aching with curiosity about specifics in the financing of the insurgency, the fact is that it doesn’t really matter. Whoever is financing the insurgency, probably multiple sources awash with oil money, are not the ones to blame for this deadly adventure. They are pushing their interest as one would expect they would. The blame in the end for putting us at the receiving end of this trail of hostile money falls squarely on the planners of this invasion. And on Uncle-Tommish allies. The subpar intelligence of the invasion's planners has resulted in the unnecessary loss of life and treasure. Not to mention the unleashing of a force that would not be satisfied with any of the silly Bush Administration's charm offensives. The planners' mediocrity was tremendous. (The Algerian civil war was there for them to see.) Let’s hope their successors are smart, nimble, and flexible.

Let's dream on.