(Re-) Creating Anbar's Awakening
- Details
- Published: Saturday, 28 March 2009 13:26
- Written by Gabriel Ledeen
By Gabriel Ledeen
28 March 2009
Signaling his commitment to campaign promises of a "surge" in Afghanistan, President Obama recently authorized the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to reinforce our flagging efforts. While he is still awaiting the official "strategic review" of the war, the president undoubtedly believes that the additional troops are necessary to counter the resurgent Taliban in much the same way that our surge in Iraq succeeded in quelling violence and securing the apocalyptic Baghdad.
Such a comparison, with especially significant strategic implications, requires a more thorough understanding of our Iraqi successes than currently exists. The differences between Afghanistan and Iraq are myriad and meaningful -- that is clear -- but the focus on implementing our newly recast counter-insurgency doctrine in the "other" war should give us reason to consider what exactly we did to turn the tide in Iraq. As most now recognize, the change began in Iraq's most infamous province, al Anbar. The popular consensus regarding Al Anbar contends that the tribal movement known as the "Awakening" was an impromptu rejection by Sunnis of Al Qaeda in Iraq's (AQI) brutal methods and radical rule. This consensus is wrong, or at best, only partially right.
