tdaxp

"The Mystery of the Insurgency, by James Bennet, New York Times, 15 May 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/weekinreview/15bennet.html.

"Over 30 Bodies Found," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 16 May 2005, http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/guantanamo-controversies-bible-and.html.

"Rice, in Baghdad, Urges Sunni Role in Constitution," by Richard Oppel Jr, New York Times, 16 May 2005, http://nytimes.com/2005/05/16/international/middleeast/16rice.html.

A provocative article in the New York Times makes us wonder: are the Sunni anti-Iraqis losers?

Counter-insurgency experts are baffled, wondering if the world is seeing the birth of a new kind of insurgency; if, as in China in the 1930's or Vietnam in the 1940's, it is taking insurgents a few years to organize themselves; or if, as some suspect, there is a simpler explanation.

"Instead of saying, 'What's the logic here, we don't see it,' you could speculate, there is no logic here," said Anthony James Joes, a professor of political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and the author of several books on the history of guerrilla warfare. The attacks now look like "wanton violence," he continued. "And there's a name for these guys: Losers."

But USA Today quotes Iraqi army Brig. Hussein Muhsen al-Fariji giving a different explanation, focusing on the Sunni nationalist guerrillas: "The criminals want to spread panic among the people and give the impression that the new government must be changed." (That is, the guerrillas are ex-Baathists aiming ultimately to make a coup, and they are destabilizing the country because they think the public will be so hungry for law and order that they will accept the coup when it eventually comes.)

• Pentrating the Iraqi government with agents, from secretaries to even political appointees,
  
• Isolating the government from the people, and people from each other through killings and terrorism
  
• Subverting the political process by using government agents to help the government, and now
  
  
• Reorienting Iraqi policy by convincing the government the problem is too few Sunnis, which will become
  
  
• Reharmonization after a Sunni Coup uses strong methods and restores peace

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Iraq on Sunday to urge its new Shiite-dominated government to greatly increase the involvement of Sunni Arabs in writing the Iraqi constitution, amid growing administration alarm that a chance to draw the Sunni minority into Iraq's new democracy is slipping away.

On a trip that underscored Washington's urgency, Ms. Rice carried a clear message: Shiite political leaders should respond rapidly and effectively to any sign that wavering elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency might be ready to turn to peace.