(Washington Post) Gary Anderson - The insurgency in Iraq is shifting from being a fairly popular resistance against foreign occupation to a more classic brand that attempts to overthrow a struggling government. The U.S. military leadership in Iraq recently conceded that the center of gravity of the insurgency has shifted away from the Baathist holdouts and toward the foreign fighters. Many Sunni Baathists appear to be biding their time to see whether the new government will include them. There should be a concerted effort on the part of the Iraqi government to split the insurgency and play off the differences in goals between the secular Baathist holdouts, whose primary complaint is their exclusion, from the foreign insurgents, whose religious motivations are at odds with secular Sunnis as well as Shiites and Kurds of all persuasions. The writer is a retired Marine Corps officer who has advised the Defense Department on the Iraqi insurgency.
2005-06-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive