Word: anbar
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...sure, the success in the Sunni areas is real, but it may have greater long-term significance in the region than it does in Iraq. We've learned an important lesson in Anbar province: the Islamic-extremist message is a loser. Most Muslims do not want to live without music, television and, especially, tobacco. They don't want their daughters forcibly married to jihadis or their sons shrouded in explosive vests. That is certainly good news, but it's not enough. Indeed, the campaign against AQI may be among the last useful missions for the U.S. military in Iraq...
...troops, at their highest level ever in Iraq, have delivered visible results in recent months. Violence in Baghdad in particular is down significantly. In a matter of months, Anbar Province, with the help of tribal leaders, has gone from a virtual lost cause to the greatest U.S. achievement in years of struggle. To be sure, violence is still extraordinarily high, especially in places like Diyala Province. And the situation in Anbar is fragile at best as other problems loom ever larger in the face of political stalemate in Baghdad. But anyone wondering whether the surge strategy has brought gains...
...biggest obstacle to such a pact is Sittar's regionalism; he's powerful in Anbar, but not so much in other provinces dominated by Sunnis like Diyala and Salahuddin. There are questions of Sittar's ability to function as a reasonable political actor in Baghdad since at present his power and influence flows chiefly from a personal army that is at bottom a tribal militia. He has no presence in parliament or any other trappings of officialdom. In other words, Sittar is more warlord chieftain than national statesman. Moreover, Maliki's own Dawa party may blanch at the idea...
...Sunni figure Maliki could court is Sheik Abdul Sittar, the leader of the tribal alliance in Anbar province. Maliki has offered a tentative embrace of Sittar's "Awakening" movement, in which Sittar banded together tribal leaders in Anbar to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq alongside the Americans. Few other Sunni leaders on the political stage in Iraq now hold as much sway as Sittar, who has made no secret of his desire to take on a larger leadership role in the country. A formal political alliance between Sittar and Maliki would leave little room in the political sphere for Sunnis...
...among some stalwart Shi'ite circles. Sittar and his followers, should they be interested, represent a distant, difficult possible alternative. If Sittar becomes part of the Maliki coalition, it would be seen as a positive step by the Americans because of his recent cooperation with the U.S. military in Anbar. That closeness, however, may be politically problematical for Maliki, who has been attempting to show his autonomy from Washington...