Word: tribalisms
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...Marines staged against Fallujah in 2004. "We don't want to Fallujah Ramadi," said McClung, making me laugh. "We don't want to destroy the city to save it." McClung went on: Beefed-up local police forces would wrest the city from insurgents block by block instead, with local tribal leaders providing fresh recruits. Some new tribal flatfoots were already on the streets. The tide in Ramadi, McClung said, was turning. "It's getting better," McClung said. "I think Iraq in general is getting better...
...next time I met Abu Mohammed, in the summer of 2004, he had come to Baghdad with a group of tribal sheikhs to seek patronage from the new Iraqi government. It was a few days after Saddam had been brought to court for the first time, and Iraqis were still absorbing the prospect that justice would be done upon their former tormentor. When I asked Abu Mohammed if Saddam was still in his head, he told me a story about one of his sons, who had a leg blown off by a landmine during Saddam's first folly, the eight...
...moment Sittar will wax philosophical about the sociological complexities of Iraq. And in the next he'll politely explain how al-Qaeda in Iraq is really made up of tribal outcasts - criminals, countryside bumpkins and homosexuals. His people, on the other hand, says Sittar, are the elite of local society. "Tribes aren't what you're imagining," Sittar tells me as we sit talking one evening at his house. "These people who make up tribes are doctors, engineers, intellectuals, farmers and mechanics...
...Sittar paints his transformation into a U.S. supporter in Iraq as an epiphany flowing from the realization that al-Qaeda was an evil force destroying life for him and others in Ramadi. The tribal leaders who've gathered under his banner, about 40 in all, echo the sentiment, which seems sincere enough even if other motives have factored into their decision to take up the cause now, three years into the insurgency. The U.S. is simply glad that the enemy of its enemy is now a friend. MacFarland acknowledges that the reasons Sittar and other tribal leaders have for cooperating...
...foreseeable future. Sittar says the tribes would never turn against Americans, and he stresses again and again his commitment to building up the Iraqi government and deferring authority, eventually, to it. MacFarland puts much faith in Sittar and takes him at his word. But MacFarland also realizes how abruptly tribal politics can change directions, turning allies into enemies. "Tribes are like countries," he says. "They don't have friends, they have interests. Right now we're both to them. Down the road, would they fight us if we overstayed out welcome? They might very well...