Word: sunni
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...Senator who mined this turf most profitably was ... Barack Obama (a surprise, since you never expect a presidential peacock to be succinct or acute enough in these bloviathons). Obama hit Petraeus and Crocker with an artful series of questions about the two main threats: Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iran. He noted that al-Qaeda had been rejected by the Iraqi Sunnis and chased to the northern city of Mosul. If U.S. and Iraqi troops succeeded there, what was next? He proposed: "Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace of al-Qaeda...
...Obama's question was slightly disingenuous. Few people believe that the Sunni Awakening movement-the insurgents who flipped to our side after a fling with al-Qaeda-would stay peaceful if the U.S. military weren't there as a buffer between them and the Shi'ites. The Iraqi army remains a mess of militias in camouflage. But we have had a significant success in Iraq and dealt al-Qaeda-style extremism a resounding defeat. So why not continue the judicious withdrawal that has begun...
...know very well-the south-and taking sides against what is probably the most popular mass movement in Shi'ite Iraq. But the Petraeus battle plan apparently includes an anti-Sadrist move, which may mean a spurt of violence as widespread and vicious as the worst of the Sunni insurgency. Is that why the general wants a "pause" in the U.S. withdrawal this summer...
...Colonel Gian Gentile wrote last month. "Its ability to fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry is in danger of atrophy." Gentile argues that it was the cease-fire declared last year by Sadr as well as the U.S. military's alliance with former Sunni militants against al-Qaeda that were more important than the surge in turning the tide in Iraq...
...recent violence in Basra shows how tenuous what passes for peace in Iraq really is. And William Odom, a retired three-star Army general, has spelled out just how shaky that alliance with the Sunnis is. "Our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty," Odom told the Senate Foreign Relations committee last Wednesday. He cited one estimate that the U.S. military is paying a local strongman $250,000 a day to keep the peace in a 36-square mile swath of the country. "Remember, we do not own these people, we rent them - and they can break...