What are much more worrying are the many small attacks that take place across north-central Iraq each month, and Ramadan was no exception. Within the Sunni areas, this year has witnessed a slow-burning campaign of intimidation against those Sunni Arabs who sided with the Americans and the government since the Surge began. Though there was early optimism that the Iraqi government could be strong-armed by the US military into supporting these Awakening and Sons of Iraq movements, something is clearly going wrong at the local level for many of these beleaguered groups. Precisely targeted violence – exactly the kind of violence the Baath excelled at – has replaced the blunt instrument of the punitive car bomb. Insurgent groups are attempting to rebuild operational sanctuaries and recruitment areas using more selective tools such as “night letters” (warnings), assassination and bribery targeted on significant numbers of key community leaders and security force members. The Shia-led ISF are often as clueless about the goings-on within the very Sunni Arab communities they are patrolling as the Americans were before the Surge.
For this reason, I am focusing my attention on the many small security events which, like pixels on a screen, eventually form a picture. Something important is happening within the Sunni community at the present time, a dynamic that Richard Spencer very effectively captured in his devastating 31 August piece for The Daily Telegraph, entitled “Now it's every Iraqi for himself.” With great precision, Spencer noted: “The American part of the surge demonstrated a commitment to securing Iraq …. This then spurred the man and woman on the street to take risks for the future….. With the Americans leaving again, and the politicians unable to form a government, six months after parliamentary elections, the calculation has shifted once more. Securing a safe tomorrow for your family is a better bet than securing a safe future for the nation.” Regardless of the exact balance of Baathist and Islamist groups active in Iraq today, one thing is certain. There is a historic opportunity for the insurgency to partially reinvigorate itself at the present time, and the bad guys appear to be seizing that opportunity with both hands.
Profile
Dr Michael Knights is Vice President and lead Iraq analyst at Olive Group, the first security company to operate in Iraq, operating as an Iraqi company (Al-Zaytoon) since 2003. He has worked on Iraqi political and security risks since the mid-1990s, first as an oil and gas journalist and later as an academic, receiving his PhD on Iraq at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Since 2003, Dr Knights has run the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Iraq programme, advising US government agencies on Iraq policy and publishing a series of books on local politics and security in Basrah, Maysan, Dhi Qar and the northern provinces including Kirkuk. Since joining Olive Group in 2006, he has consulted on community and stakeholder engagement with most of the major oil and gas and construction companies entering Iraq.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
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