Sunni revolt could get far worse: report("The worst might be yet to come")

[sabra]

http://about.upi.com/products/perspectives/UPI-20050829-035752-4480R

Sunni revolt could get far worse: report

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The Sunni insurgency in Iraq could metastasize and become far more widespread and dangerous than it already is, a leading Washington analyst has warned in a new study.

"The worst might be yet to come -- with all that implies for ongoing efforts to stand up Iraq's new security forces and future plans to reduce the U.S. military presence in Iraq," Michael Eisenstadt, director of security studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned in a new Policy Watch issued by the think tank.

....

"In light of recent warnings by Sunni Arab politicians that dissatisfaction with the draft constitution could spur additional violence, the more important conclusion ... may be that only a small fraction of the Sunni Arab population that supports attacks on coalition forces or that has some kind of military or paramilitary training has been mobilized by the insurgency thus far," he wrote. "Insurgent efforts expand their recruiting efforts, succeed in broadening their appeal, or opt to fight a "popular war" against the Iraqi government (and coalition forces) by exploiting this untapped demographic potential, the worst may be yet to come."

....

However, Eisenstadt in his study noted that according to figures from the United Nations Development Program's 2004 Iraq Living Conditions Survey, the Sunni Muslim population, while only 20 percent, or one-fifth of the total population of Iraq, still amounts to 5.4 million people of whom 1.35 million are men of military age, from age 15 to 49.

[enigma000]

1. Then the Sunnis should vote the constitution down

And then, in the next election, actually participate instead of waging a boycott. If the Sunnis fail to learn that terrorism won't solve their problems, they will be left with nothing but a small, oil-less territory called loser-stan - isolated, impoverished and under the rule of Zarqawi and his jihads psychos.

[Frances]

2. Sure. Like that's what's been happening in the Middle East

for thousands of years. (Sarcasm)

Bushco failed to plan for what would happen after Saddam. Bush just assumed that Iraqis would be so grateful to the U.S. for getting rid of Saddam that he could control the country and its oil with propaganda. That is not the country's history.

Clinton was dealing with ethnic war in Kosovo, but Clinton put together a real coalition and not one American soldier died in action. Too bad Bush couldn't have taken a page out of Clinton's book.

[BillZBubb]

4. Why should they participate in a sham????

What makes you think their votes will really count? We don't have honest elections in the US and you think they'll have one in war torn Iraq???? Please.

The Sunnis are fighting a war of resistance against an occupier and collaborators. Too bad you've drank the BushCo "terrorist" Kool-Aid.

[enigma000]

7. But the resistance isn't winning

Sure they are blowing up cars, assassinating public officials, killing coalition soldiers, suicide bombing childing but all they are accomplishing is isolating the Sunni Arab community from national political power.

I know having foreign soldiers occupying Iraqi (to say nothing of the how poorly managed the occupation has been) has wounded the pride of the Iraqis and caused much anti-American feelings but the Kurds and Shiites have subdued this, and the hostility toward each other, to contest elections, form a government and write a constitution. Why can't the Sunni play nice?

The Sunni must participate in the Constitutional process or they will wind up partitioned away from Iraq's oil reserves, in poverty, and isolated forever. Possibly even being, as is pointed out, "ethnically cleansed". It's not Koolaid, it's worse, it's the bitter taste of reality.

[IndianaGreen]

12. We are not winning either, and for the insurgents, that's victory!

No one can defeat the American military machine, but anyone can bleed that machine to death, sapping it of its will. Iraqis are already home. They have nothing to lose. The GI is far from home, and has everything to lose. I'll put my money on the resistance.

[mbperrin]

8. Maybe you should explain how terrorism doesn't work to

the Green Mountain Boys, among others...

[enigma000]

9. Sorry.......Who?

I am unfamiliar with this group.

[mbperrin]

11. First, promise you never took any US History (I teach it)

http://www.americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/ALLEN.HTM

Allen was born on January 21, 1738, in Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1769 he moved to the region known as the New Hampshire Grants, comprising present-day Vermont. After settling in Bennington, he became prominently involved in the struggle between New York and New Hampshire for control of the region. Following rejection by the New York authorities of an appeal that the region be established as a separate province, Allen organized a volunteer militia, called the Green Mountain Boys, to resist and evict proponents of the New York cause. He was thereupon declared an outlaw by the royal governor of New York.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Allen and his force offered their services against the British. On orders from the Connecticut legislature, he, the Connecticut soldier Benedict Arnold, and a contingent of the Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga early in the morning of May 10, 1775. Allen demanded surrender from the British commander "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress."

There's more, but you get the gist...

[enigma000]

15. Indeed I have never taken any US History

While my minor was in History, it was in European History. I'm afraid I may know more British history than US, which is not that unusual to say being Canadian.

Oddly enough, I took a road trip to Florida from Toronto last week, and visited a museum in Tennessee that had a great deal of information on the American Revolution (as well as other wars) It was my first trip in the US south of Niagara Falls.

I stand corrected: terrorism does work. It's just that, to paraphase Napoleon, history is an agreed upon set of lies; and the victors write the lies, er, history. So history records the American revolutionaries as patriots and freedom fighters while my Tory ancestors were evicted from their lands and migrated north to British North America, thereupon becoming United Empire Loyalists. But hey, no hard feelings eh?

[mbperrin]

18. You are too right about that...the winners write the history books, so

terrists become patriots and heroes while the "other" guys become the Evil Empire.

Nice to have had this little chat, and I really do feel better knowing that you're not one of my former students!

See ya around DU.

[Just Me]

14. Do you understand the concept of a "secular society"?

Have you a fucking clue about Iraq, as it existed BEFORE BUSH OCCUPATION,...and the "Iraq" as it exists now?

x(

Reverse the tables,...if you have the depth and breadth to do so. These people did NOTHING to threaten our safety,...NOTHING, NOTHING!!!

[enigma000]

16. I never claimed they did

I never advocated this war. I am unimpressed with the lack of competence in the occupation. Planning an exit would make good sense.

And frankly, I know what Iraq before: a socialist, secular Baathist dictatorship run by a crime family with a thug megalomaniac as President who suffered from delusions of pan-Arabist glory, whose hero was Joesph Stalin and who's major accomplishment was to run the premier nation of the Arab world right into the Mesopotamian desert ground.

If the Sunnis want to go back to this then, hey, who am I to argue differently. I just don't think the Kurds and the Shiites want to get back on that ride to oblivion. And who knows, it took you Americans 80 years to solve that slavery problem of yours, maybe the Iraqis will secularize their nation in half the time.

[0rganism]

3. Duh

Next on the menu: Civil War

Gee, I seem to remember someone warning that this kind of thing would happen post-invasion.... now who was that? Oh yeah, it was George fucking H. W. Bush aka "Bush the smarter".

Way to listen to yer old man, junior.

[shadowknows69]

5. And we'll get to stay and fight

The Iraqi civil war on the side of the new shiite government. can you say ethnic cleansing? I thought that you could.

[Fleshdancer]

6. Damn you Cindy Sheehan!!!

har har har!

Seriously though, what the hell did people expect? Sudden unity between groups of people who have been battling each other for centuries? So you put them in a room and have them write "Constitution" on a piece of paper and voila, you have Democracy?? Nuts.

[JustSayNO 2 Sheeples]

10. Well, yeah...

Of course I expected that. My president said so.

:banghead:

[bpilgrim]

13. As for the Sunnis, "It's hard to identify anything they got" Knight Ridder

Shiites may benefit from a proposal that gives the biggest say in most matters to the numerical majority.

"The constitution places fairly weak checks on the majority," Brown said....

Islam will have a strong role in Iraqi government. It's the official religion of the state and no law can be passed that contradicts the "undisputed laws" of Islam, according to the constitution. And the Supreme Federal Court, which is given the job of interpreting the constitution, will include Islamic law experts.

"It there are losers, it's secularists, particularly secular and religious minorities," such as the Sunnis, Morrow said.

...

Revenue from oil fields developed in the future will be controlled by regions, said Jonathan Morrow, an adviser to the drafting committee from the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan conflict-resolution group. Regional control helps Kurds in the oil-rich northern part of the country. Shiites who dominate southern Iraq have considerable oil too, but not Sunnis who are in the middle.

_The draft sets a 2007 deadline for settlement of the fate of Kirkuk, the oil-rich northern city that Sunnis, Kurds and Turkmen each claim.

"My guess is they'll get Kirkuk that way," Morrow said, meaning the Kurds.

source...

i know they got 'NO-ONE' to blame but themselves (according to conventional wisdom (M$MWs) but we surely realize that ain't gonna work, cept for the divide and conquer strategy.

how many dem leaders will go along with this strat?

at what point will china, india & russia get more heavily involved... after Iran?

shouldn't we be working to ensure human rights in international law and getting future world powers to sign on, instead of stripping then from proposals (BOLTON) and threating the world with our military and 'diplomatic' aggression?

can we get our leaders to get behind this and actually speak OUT and stand UP for it?

or is it way past time for that kinda optimism :shrug:

BTW: here is an interesting article that sparked this question posted by one of DU's old-timers, Jack Rabbit...

Stagger on, weary Titan

The US is reeling, like imperial Britain after the Boer war - but don't gloat

Timothy Garton Ash in Stanford
Thursday August 25, 2005
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1555819,00.html

peace

[Cocoa]

17. maybe we ARE turning a corner

:scared: