Arab News Blog

All Iraq-watching eyes are quite naturally focused on the election results which continue to dribble in, with some hope of final results soon.   There’s plenty to watch: Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiyya list edging ahead of Nuri al-Maliki’s State of  Law, a six vote difference between the Kurdistan Alliance and Iraqiyya in Kirkuk, escalating complaints of fraud, the taunting of prominent individuals who performed badly in the open list voting system.  We’ll have to wait even longer for the final results to be processed through the complex reallocation of votes from losing lists to those over the threshold.  But in the meantime, I’ve been mulling over an interesting document which I just found on the forums:  A Strategic Plan to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State of Iraq.   Call it the jihadist version of David Petraeus’s FM 3-24, a counter-counterinsurgency manual and a frank lessons-learned analysis by an adaptive and resilient organization which has not given up in the face of setbacks.   How does al-Qaeda in Iraq’s umbrella organization hope to rekindle the spark of jihad?

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The 55 page document, published under a pseudonym, is a remarkably frank "lessons learned" analysis which does not shy away from identifying where the ISI’s strategy went wrong.   It’s not an "official" document, whatever that means, but it’s fascinating nonetheless and demonstrates some deep thinking about the fortunes of the Islamic State in Iraq.    It explains its setbacks, which it argues came at the height of its power and influence, on what it calls two smart and effective U.S. moves in 2006-07: an effective U.S. media and psychological campaign, which convinced many that the "mujahideen" had committed atrocities against Iraqis and killed thousands of Muslims; and the Awakenings, achieved through its manipulation of the tribes and the "nationalist resistance."   The document doesn’t mention the "Surge" much at all, at least not in terms of the troop escalation which most Americans have in mind.     

Building upon a lengthy post-mortem on the Awakenings and the media campaigns, the Strategic Plan sets out a detailed agenda for the coming years during and after the U.S. withdrawal.   It calls the coming war "a political and media war to the first degree", with the winner "the side that best prepares for the period following the withdrawal."  It recognizes that the Islamic State can not control all of Iraq through military force alone, and that only a wise political strategy can succeed.  It then offers a detailed five point plan, including a process to unify the ranks of the jihad, in part by reaching out to the old nationalist resistance and convincing them to return to the fold;  detailed military preparations, including recommendations to conserve men and resources until the right time; and an enhanced media operation designed to rebut the most damaging charges against the Islamic State and carefully tied to a coherent political strategy.  Perhaps its most striking concept is a detailed plan for creating "Jihadist Awakenings", mimicking the U.S. engagement of the tribes to create broader popular support.  

This is one of the more interesting documents from the Iraq-focused forums I’ve come across in a while — pragmatic and analytical rather than bombastic, surprisingly frank about what went wrong, and alarmingly creative about the Iraqi jihad’s way forward.   I’ve said often that I find a resurgence of the Sunni insurgency unlikely at this point, for many reasons, and this document does little to change that assessment.  Unifying the former insurgency is easier said than done, the Iraqi political process and state capabilities have changed dramatically, and the damage to the image of the Islamic State isn’t fading.   But this is a reminder that the insurgency was adaptive and resilient, is capable of adjusting its strategy to new conditions, can learn from its mistakes, and will try to take advantage of any Sunni frustrations in the coming years.    Even if the insurgency isn’t on the brink of resuming, and Iraq isn’t yet unraveling, this is the sort of thing to which I hope the right people are still paying attention.   

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The staff of Cairo-based IslamOnline website have gone on strike following a move by the site's management to restrict "editorial independence." he site was plunged into chaos after its bosses in Qatar decided to take control of its content from editorial offices in Egypt.
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With Iraqi electoral results finally beginning to be released, with over 60% reporting for many provinces, expect to see a lot of analysis of the results in the coming days on the Middle East Channel and elsewhere.  Reider Visser has already been doing some great work identifying how the Sadrists are catapulting over ISCI candidates thanks to the open list voting system in Baghdad and other provinces.   I was struck this morning by the results in Anbar, where Shaykh Ahmed Abu Risha’s Awakenings List (part of Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani’s Unity of Iraq List), seems headed for a near epic wipe-out.   That is quite a comedown for the heir to Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha’s Anbar Awakening, whose decision to align with the U.S. against al-Qaeda in Iraq’s Islamic State of Iraq in the months before the "Surge" proved so pivotal, and a sign that the leaders of the Awakening may not have found a path to national political power through the ballot box after all.   Is this a cause for concern? 

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The election results are not yet final, but at this point the trend looks clear enough.  With 78% reporting, Abu Risha’s Unity of Iraq List has received less than 32,000 votes and is not only being thoroughly crushed by Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya List (with almost 220,000 votes) but even trails the supposedly decimated Tawaffuq List (over 40,000 votes).   The fiery Shaykh Ali Hatem Sulayman joined Prime Minister Maliki’s State of Law coalition, but the entire list has yet to reach 5000 votes.  Recruiting the outspoken Hamed al-Hayyes to the primarily Shia Iraqi National Alliance has thus far attracted less than 4000 votes.  Unity of Iraq may just squeak out a single seat, but even that looks like it may be close.  

Over the last few years, most American analysts have argued that these elections would offer a path to power through the ballot box for the leaders of the Awakenings.   Their evident washout in Anbar suggest that they won’t, which may trigger a lot of the fears of those analysts (including me) who for years warned about the dangers of not accommodating Sunnis in the political system or integrating the Awakenings and Sons of Iraq into the state.  But the response thus far suggests reasons to be less worried than in the past.  During last January’s provincial election, when it appeared that Abu Risha’s list had lost,  he threatened to turn Anbar into a "graveyard" for the Islamic Party if his List was not declared the victor.  Despite mounting claims of fraud, I haven’t yet been seeing many such threats this time, and don’t see any reason yet to anticipate that it will trigger the much-feared resurgence of the insurgency. 

That may be because the result does not come out of nowhere.  The Awakenings seem to have lost some of their allure as they failed to deliver rapid improvements in governance or the economy, and as complaints about corruption grew against the new incumbents.  Lots of personal, tribal, and political conflicts have played out in public, while the unifying threat of the intense battle with the Islamic State of Iraq has faded.   The Awakenings have always been fragmented and internally competitive, which was only exacerbated by the formation of electoral lists.    Abu Risha’s highly public flirtation with Prime Minister Maliki did not play well with Anbar’s Sunni citizens, and then he was caught in the national collapse of  Bolani’s list.  Meanwhile, Allawi appears to have captured the mantle of the "Sunni vote" for strategically minded voters, while the de-Ba’athification circus likely focused attention on the national level.  

Still, it can’t help but feel like a sign of the times.  Abu Risha and his late brother were the face of American cooperation with the Sunnis against al-Qaeda.  His defeat, and the general irrelevance of the Awakenings to the Anbar election results, offers one more suggestion of the waning influence of the U.S. and how little cachet such relationships still hold (and, no doubt, of the "betrayal" likely felt by many of its members).   But it also may hold a hopeful sign that Iraq has moved on, with different national political issues and leaving behind even the recent past.   I find it reassuring that I’m not yet seeing much talk of turning Anbar into a graveyard over the election results… though I’ll be watching. 

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Comprehensive coverage of this from Eman AbdElRahman, Global Voices Online, Egypt: IslamOnline Employees Strike, 16 Mar 2010 "It is worth mentioning that this strike may be the first instance in which strikers use new media efficiently and effectively to draw all the attention needed to support their cause, from continuous Twitter updates to Live streaming."

There’s a Facebook group: IslamOnline
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LA Times, Babylon & Beyond, MIDDLE EAST: Iran and Arab countries "enemies of the Internet," says report, 15 Mar 2010 "As of last week, the advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders counted nearly 120 bloggers, journalists and others behind bars for their online activities — more than any other time since the creation of the Internet."

See Reporters Without Borders, Web 2.0 versus Control
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My FP colleague Tom Ricks has been arguing for quite some time not only that the U.S. should keep significant numbers of combat forces in Iraq well beyond Obama’s timeline, but that U.S. commanders have actually asked for this. Today, he posts what he takes as a vindication of his reporting:

Here’s the story in which Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, the U.S. commander for northern Iraq, discusses the need to keep a combat brigade up there beyond President Obama’s August deadline to get all combat troops out of Iraq. As reported here about two weeks ago, I might add.

Uh oh! So, let’s click the link and see what it says. The headline does indeed say "U.S. commander might need troops beyond August." What about the actual article? Let me just quote:

General Cucolo says he is only talking about maybe 800 troops in 26 small units spread along the Arab-Kurd regional border, and they could be redesignated as advisory units, the U.S. network said.

And the general says even that may not be necessary. He says the Kurdish and Arab forces that nearly went to war last year, before the three-way security system was established, are now working together quite well. In the interview, he predicted they might be able to work without U.S. help by the time the American combat role is to end six months from now, but later he backed off from that a little bit.

Eight hundred troops in 26 small advisory units, which may not be necessary? OK. If the "unravelling of Iraq" which Ricks has been predicting for the last year is of the same magnitude as this possible extension of 800 troops in small advisory units which may not be necessary, then I think we could probably all live with it.

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LA Times, Babylon & Beyond, Man in sexually suggestive YouTube video is arrested, 10 Mar 2010 "Again, a controversial, sexually charged video has gone viral in Saudi Arabia. And, again, it appears to have ruffled the feathers of Saudi guardians of morality." [tip: Mona Eltahawy]

Also see al-Bab, Saudi jailed and flogged for gay video, 11 Mar 2010 "A 27-year-old Saudi man from Jeddah has been
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Tim Stevens, ubiwar.com, To Cyberwar, Or Not to Cyberwar, 12 Mar 2010 "Just to round up a few bits and pieces about this are-we-at-cyberwar-or-not business. Sorry for the reflexive nature of this post but there are quite a few posts that need drawing together in one place."
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US Vice President Joe Biden praised planned low-level peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians this week as "a moment of real opportunity" — just as a member of the Israeli government seemed to …
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United States Institute of Peace, Next Generation Peacebuilding in Iraq is interesting in terms of this blog, as it will include a webcast from Iraq. [today, 2 pm to 3:30 pm (Eastern)]

Also see Meedan, The US Institute of Peace webcast "Next Generation Peacebuilding in Iraq"

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