The President and leaders like McCain continue to argue that we are succeeding in Iraq now because of the surge, because of additional troops. However there continues to be a stream of articles that point out that the roots of success are not that simple.
It is not brute force that is making change, it is in fact embracing Iraq's tribal culture and buying loyalty to get local tribes to resist Al Queda. Not easy to spit out in a 30-second sound-bite but this answer is more realistic and the potential consequences are more complex.
McCain and Kerry both spoke eloquently about Iraq on MtP Sunday. It is hard to know what is the best course of action now. Give it more time or remove the American troops that are the focus of Al Queda's cause.
Brothers in Arms: Sheik Backs U.S., Sibling Is Suspect
To Clear Family Name, Mr. Shammari Fights Insurgents -- for a Fee
September 14, 2007
Wall Street Journal
The al-Shammari case is part of a new thrust in the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq: cajoling Shiite tribal leaders to fight extremists. The experiment is modeled on promising efforts in some Sunni-dominated territory, like the onetime insurgency hotbed of Anbar province west of Baghdad.
President Bush and others have pointed to Anbar as a sign of progress in the four-year war here. Mr. Bush met with several leading Sunni sheiks in his surprise visit to Anbar last week. Yesterday, one of the men, Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Reshah, was killed by a roadside bomb.
U.S. commanders are now trying to export the Anbar tactic to Shiite and mixed Shiite-Sunni lands, where tribal loyalties and sectarian rivalries can be much more difficult to sort out. Here in Babylon province south of Baghdad, commanders are making deals with these mercurial Shiite chieftains and navigating a tangled knot of allegiances and motivations. One lesson the Americans appear to have learned: Money talks.
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It was the first payment from the Americans as part of a security deal in which the sheik pledged his 175 fighters to battle anti-American insurgents. The fighters now wear reflective armbands to avoid the fate of their slain comrade.
Word has gotten out here that there's money to be made by pledging allegiance to the Americans. Late last month, another Shiite sheik arrived on the U.S. base here and begged for money, talking up his own influence in the tribe. "My tribe is very obedient," Sheik Sadiq al-Ghanimi told Capt. Eric Lawless. "If I tell them to sleep, they sleep. If I tell them to wake up, they wake up."
The sheik asked for agricultural help, and for a school, and, as he put it, for a "present from the American people." In return, he promised to fight extreme Shiite militias. "This guy is trying to get anything he can out of me," Capt. Lawless said later. The sheik left without a deal, Capt. Lawless says.
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Mr. al-Shammari then signed a security deal with the Americans. Under its terms, he will be held accountable for any attacks launched from his area, and the Americans will stop firing on his villages. He has pledged to have 141 armed guards manning checkpoints in a three-month deal worth about $200,000.
