Insurgents seek dialogue with U.S., role in new Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As Iraq moves toward crucial legislative elections Thursday, homegrown Iraqi insurgent groups are reaching out to the United States in the hope of launching a dialogue that would draw them into the political process and end their 2 1/2-year rebellion, according to U.S. officials and Iraqis close to the insurgency.

Spurred by fears of the growing influence of Iran and encouraged by signals from Washington that the United States will start drawing down troops next year, insurgents who see themselves as fighting for an Iraqi nationalist cause are looking for ways to distance themselves from the religious radicals and the hard-core Baathists who have dominated the insurgency in the public eye, with a view to establishing a foothold in Iraq's political landscape, the Iraqis say.

But the signals from both sides point to a building momentum toward negotiations that could help ease the violence as U.S. forces prepare to start reducing troops next year.

Insurgent groups who identify themselves as fighting for a nationalist Iraqi cause are keen to draw a similar distinction, said Talal Gaaod, an Iraqi businessman and tribal leader based in Jordan who is in the forefront of one effort to unite insurgent groups against the al-Zarqawi loyalists. "There is a difference between terrorists and the national Iraqi resistance," he said. "Zarqawi's group does nothing but suicide attacks and killing Iraqis. That's not resistance."

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/13398172.htm

Newsweek
June 2005

<snip>

Other Iraqis are more bullish on Jordan. Talal Gaaod, a U.S.-educated engineer and a prominent member of the Dulaimi tribe, a Sunni clan from central Iraq, is making Amman a semi-permanent base for business on both sides of the border. He is working with Mitsui Corp. and other investors to build a 650-kilometer oil pipeline from Al Hadithah in western Iraq to the Jordanian city of Zarqa, plus a 300-kilometer spur to Aqaba and a refinery in Jordan.

Gaaod's company, Tabouk Group Holding Co., booked $35 million in profits last year, largely from work developing Iraq's construction and power sectors. Gaaod rotates his staff of 120 from Iraq to Amman for training with such frequency that he is shopping for a corporate jet and an airliner for cargo. In Amman, the company built a $3 million headquarters, and seeks to develop a 500-hectare property with residences, offices, parks, an opera house, hotels and a museum, at a cost of $3 billion. "We have a vision for Jordan, a new Ithad Alhashimi," says Gaaod, referring to the cold-war alliance between Iraq and Jordan, which at the time were both under Hashemite rule.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8272029/site/newsweek/

By David Ignatius
Special to The Daily Star
Saturday, December 18, 2004

<snip>

I talked by telephone this week to a Sunni tribal leader from Ramadi who, in a more rational world, would be one of the building blocks of a new Iraq. His name is Talal Gaaod, and his father is a leading sheikh in the Duleim tribe that has power in what has become known as the Sunni Triangle, west of Baghdad.

Gaaod, who took his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Southern California, has tried various ways to help stabilize his area. He proposed a tribal security force in Anbar Province earlier this year that was backed by local Marine commanders but later vetoed in Baghdad. Encouraged by Jordan, he brought about 50 Iraqi Sunni leaders to Amman in November to discuss Iraq's problems. But the Jordanians canceled the meeting after the U.S. offensive in Fallujah began. He wants to believe America can create a better Iraq, but he's losing hope.

"It is a miserable situation,'' Gaaod told me. "My people feel that Iraq is going into a deep hole. Things are not improving but getting worse.

"A lot of good people are leaving the country - I'm talking about technocrats, tribal leaders, the middle class. I blame the United States for giving the clergy a front to lead events in Iraq. I am sure you will regret this one day. It will not work. One hundred years from now, it will not work.''

http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=11101

and from DailyKos
by Sharon Jumper
Sun Nov 13, 2005 at 11:19:13 PM PDT

<snip>
Talal Gaaod, an Iraqi civil servant, remarked,

The political process, and the American project, it has failed. Believe me, there is no need to waste anymore one penny of the American taxpayers' money and not more one drop of blood of the American boys. Continuing on the basis to build a democratic process in securing the country, it's only a dream (Ignatius, 2005).


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/14/11913/776

that get trotted out from time to time to parrot the Administration line.

The only reason the insurgents would have for "standing down" is to make sure US troops leave. Once we're gone, the puppet regime will be toast.

We have a much better time dealing with fellow religious fanatics - once we get rid of the ones who don't like us for some reason, the sense of brotherhood with others who operate based on catharsis, faith and emotional reactions lets us work well with them. And since back in the World we're clearly the stronger party, they effectively become convenient lackeys for us.

Saddam's Iraq was one of the secular socialist new states set up on the rim of the Third World once Western colonizers left which was founded on hard rationalist dialectic principles, with a smattering of acknowledgement to cultural traditions thrown in to keep the natives from getting restless. The result was, for those not out of favor with the regime, a semimodern state with functioning infrastructure, equal rights for women (we know that PNAC in the person of Mr. Gerecht doesn't think that those matter when nation building, but fuck him/them) and also the capability to be a regional political and military power. This is the sort of thing which doesn't sit well with American rightists, who prefer their vassal states led by stupid clowns who enjoy wearing expensive uniforms (well, Saddam was no slouch there) and are easily led, preferring nothing better than to hop in the sack with, and letting themselves, or rather their country, be plundered by American businesses. "Be sure to bring the cattle prod next time, baby."

The same people who made Iraq a more independent and functional nation than most of those which emerged from colonial pillage 60 years ago are also those who are leading a nationalist insurgency with mass support there, and are those who hold the greatest promise for producing an Iraq that is not another sad Muslim theocratic cesspool, or asslicking "ve vant your bizness, come, ve have cheap labor, young whores and no transparency regulations" lackey state of the US.

For this same reason, the usual suspects who currently control American policy have made them enemy #1 in Iraq, to be neutralized. Their motivations are showing yet again, as are their feelings of inadequacy when having to deal with people who are in touch with physical reality and have some ability at functioning in it rather than just in conservative delusional fantasy worlds.