Romancing the Sunni: A US policy tragedy in three acts Act II
Date
12/23/2015 11:08:15 PM
(MENAFN- Asia Times) Ruins of Samarra Golden Mosque
Note well however that the US had offered the Sunni a similar deal in 2004. At that time the Sunni still thought that they could beat both the Americans and the Shia. By 2006 they were begging for their lives. But the US government far from driving a hard bargain chose to see their request for something approaching an alliance against the Shia as the 'awakening' of the Sunni populations' inner 'moderation' and rushed to empower its leaders with money and weapons.
The US choice to neglect the massive fact that fear of the Shia had led the Sunni to stop fighting Americans fit all too well with the US foreign policy establishment's perennial ignorant practice of categorizing foreigners as 'moderates' or 'extremists' (aka. good guys and bad guys). That practice eliminates the bother of learning what foreigners actually have in mind. The US establishment's reaction to the Sunni who shoot at Americans has been no different from what it was with regard to the Soviets or what it is to the Chinese Iranians or anyone else: See by being nicer to them we will help awaken their inner moderation. Putting fear in their hearts is counterproductive.
US troops participating in 2006 “surge” in Iraq
But putting effective sovereignty of territory plus weapons and money in the hands of Sunnis who had been killing Americans did not make them pro American much less turn them into 'moderates.' It simply gave them more power to be what they want to be. Our illusions to the contrary continue to cost us dearly.
Sunni-stan jihadis and Daesh/ISIS
Unlike the Americans neither the Sunni nor the Shia had any illusions about the other's benevolence. By 2008 the government in Baghdad that had been created by “democracy” was more powerful and more Shia-sectarian than ever. As the end of American patronage loomed for Iraq's Sunni population it leaned once again on traditional sources of support: the military remnants of Saddam's Ba'athist regime and foreign jihadis.
The Ba'athist-jihadi combination which had functioned throughout the US occupation was headquartered in Syria. There Bashar al Assad's regime Ba'athist as well as Alawite supported the Sunni effort in Iraq out of Ba'athist solidarity. The results of Assad's balancing act were tragic for Syria redounded upon Iraq and finished both polities' destruction. Assad's help to Iraqi Sunnis had not lessened the hatred that Syrian Sunnis bear for his Alawite regime. Moreover the Sunni Muslims from around the world who had come to and through Syria to fight in Iraq ended up terribly disappointed that Iraq had ended up largely ruled by Shia and turned their anger on Assad and on his Alawis.
So in 2011 as the Americans were leaving Iraq Sunni elements in Syria as well as in Iraq stepped up their fight for power in their own countries. They drew from most (but not all) of the same donors in the Persian Gulf who had fed their fight in Iraq and gained control on both sides of the border. Having long since learned to disregard that border it would have been surprising had they not coordinated and consolidated administration of the areas over which they ruled. The result was what can best be understood as a Sunni-stan which stands naturally alongside Kurdistan whose capital is Erbil and Baghdad's Shia-stan.
This Sunni-stan's main founding factions determined its character and relevance to America. Older secular Baathists were technicians of power. They brought military expertise and the network of financial contributors who had sustained them through the long fight against the Americans. Like the regime figures in the Gulf monarchies who financed them they were not so interested in fighting the Americans — or even the Shia — as they were in doing whatever was necessary to establishing a Sunni homeland like Saddam's Iraq. The young jihadists were not interested in good relations with the Sunni states whose legitimacy they denied. For them control of territory was simply a tool for worldwide jihad. They brought religious enthusiasm and attracted tens of thousands of Sunni recruits eager to kill infidels for Allah — Shia first but anyone else as well. Whether they had come from Saudi Arabia or not their theology was Wahhabi the practical essence of which is license to declare other Muslims to be non-Muslims and hence deserving of death. Gradually the jihadists gained ascendance over the Baathists. As this Sunni-stan became Daesh/ISIS it troubled the entire world.
Islamic State fighters
This was far from the first time that bands of Wahhabis had invaded from Arabia to 'cleanse' the Levant of human impurities. In 1801 for example such a horde had killed and burned every living thing in the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. And in fact some foreign jihadis who fought the US occupation of Iraq had also practiced 'cleansing' the local population — including Sunnis. These were part of a group headed by Abu Musaab al Zarqawi who briefly pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in 2004 but refused to follow its orders to cut down on this practice. After Zarqawi's death in 2006 the group's leadership passed first to Abu Ayub al Masri who called himself 'commander of the faithful' evoking the early Caliphs and then to a man who called himself Abu Umar al Baghdadi who declared himself head of something called The Islamic State sworn “to rid Sunnis from the oppression of the [Shia] and the crusader occupiers … to make Allah’s word supreme in the world and to restore the glory of Islam.” His successor who calls himself Abu Bakr al Baghdadi cut Islamic State's vestigial ties with al Qaeda and declared himself Caliph — successor to Muhammad and leader spiritual and temporal of every Muslim on earth. That claim is not entirely empty.
The new Caliph like the early ones leads a genuine popular movement backed by a functioning state with international connections. Just like the Wahhabi raiders of 1801 the Islamic State 'cleanses' all places under its control. But the Internet and easy international travel also make it possible for Daesh/ISIS to transcend its borders by recruiting and/or inspiring sympathizers from all over the world to 'cleanse' the earth of enemies of God wherever they are.
Three Sunni Constituencies
Daesh/ISIS stands on three legs without any of which it falls: The Sunni people in former Syria and Iraq over which it rules the Sunni states from which it receives money and supplies and the Sunni 'fan boys' (and girls) around the globe who come to join it or who strike at the infidel where they are. Let us be dispassionate about why each of these constituencies supports the Islamic State.
Like the Wahhabi raiders of 1801 Daesh/ISIS conquered territory without fighting pitched battles. Now as then government forces (especially Iraqi) ran
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