“Unmasking the Insurgents,” by Rod Nordland, Tom Masland and Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6885867/site/newsweek/, 7 February 2005 (from Winds of Change and many others).
Newsweek seconds my idea that Zarqawi’s contribution is a will to violence
Interviews with guerrilla veterans of the Iraqi war, tribal leaders and Baathists, as well as American, Coalition and Iraqi officials, make it clear this is not one insurgency, but many. What Zarqawi and al-Kurdi have brought to the fight is not numbers but a particular talent for horror, for videotaped beheadings and for delivering suicide bombs.
The article posits tge same Salafist-Ba’ath connection that I described. My words:
[The Salafists and Ba'athis] have common enemies, and they have long tried to use each other, but they are not friends. I remember seeing pictures of the Ba’athi general and his son who were burned alive in Fallujah. And we have to destroy them both.
which will dissolve in blood:
The Ba’athi strategy is clear:
Remove Sunnis from the transitional government, get multinational forces out of Iraq, kill off the Shia leadership, kill off the Salafist leadership, and seize the country.The Salafist strategy is clear:
Remove Sunnis from the transitional government, get multinational forces out of Iraq, kill of the Shia leadership, kill off the Ba’athi leadership, and seize the country
Newsweek‘s take:
Barham Salih’s theory: “The Baathists regrouped and in the last six or seven months reorganized. Plus they had significant amounts of money, in Iraq and in Syria.” Those contacts and networks that Saddam’s key cronies began developing months before the invasion now paid off. An understanding was found with the Islamic fanatics, and the well-funded Baathists appear to have made Syria a protected base of operations.
If there’s any disagreement, it’s with Winds of Change’s Dan Darling. He believes that the top free Ba’athi has honestly converted to Wahabism, alienating some fellow Ba’athis.
My view? I stand by the Ba’athi-Salafist marriage of convenience, which will be bloody if they win. I do believe Dan is wrong. The Salafists and the Ba’athis would turn on each other very quickly and if al-Duri is not fully on board with the winners, he would be up against the wall as well.
May free Iraq triumpth, and the Salafists-Ba’athis never have a chance to prove me wrong.