Sunni Insurgent Leader Paints Iran as 'Real Enemy'

And here I thought Iran was a big part of the insurgency-silly me. I wonder if Cheney knows?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301792.html

Sunni Insurgent Leader Paints Iran as 'Real Enemy'
U.S. Strategy Described as Only Inflaming Iraqi Resistance

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 14, 2007; Page A13

BAGHDAD -- He wore a pale yellow dress shirt and black-rimmed glasses that lost their tint when he entered the dark lobby of a Baghdad hotel. He drank orange soda and refused a cigarette. His face was tense, but he spoke in a calm, open way about the satisfaction of killing Shiites with his own hands.

Over the course of a 90-minute interview, a leader of an armed Sunni group in western Baghdad described his hatred for Iran and the current Iraqi government, while outlining the dimensions of an armed insurgency that extends well beyond al-Qaeda in Iraq, the organization that U.S. officials routinely identify as their central enemy.

Abu Sarhan, as the 37-year-old insurgent wished to be known, said Iraq's Sunnis are deep into an entrenched and irresolvable civil war against Iranian-backed Shiites. He said the premise of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy -- deploying thousands of soldiers in small outposts in violent neighborhoods -- only inflames the insurgency and prompts attacks against the Americans.

If U.S. forces release Sunni detainees, remove the concrete blast barriers that now cordon off several neighborhoods and improve services in areas neglected by the Shiite-led government, "the attacks will be reduced 95 percent within days," he said. He added that the Americans' insistence on striking Sunni areas "is generating an increasing resistance."

A balding, wiry man who associates said had been an officer in the Fedayeen, the black-clad paramilitary force of the ousted government of Saddam Hussein, Abu Sarhan refused to give his real name. He said he was the "general coordinator" between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Omar Brigade, an insurgent group founded in July 2005 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by U.S. forces in June 2006.

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Sorry, this sounds like just one more layer of psyops bullshit being piled on by the "bomb Iran" crowd.

sw

Iran is in cahoots with Iraqi insurgents. This guy claims that's a lie, they can't stand each other.

To the point of convincing themselves that it must be a Bush lie so it must help Bush's case.

Head. Meet. Wall.

who claim that HE -- and his Mahdi Army is supported by Iran. That's why they've been busy dropping bombs in the middle of Sadr City.

Of course, Sadr is a true Iraqi nationalist who has no great love for Iran, either, unlike the other two main Shia groups -- SCIRI and DAWA (al Maliki's party) who DO have strong ties to Iran. But al Sadr gets demonized because he is probably in the strongest position to actually unite Iraq -- which is what the USG does NOT want to see happen.

The insurgency is many-faceted. The Sunnis want to return to power, so of course they are happy to accuse the Shia of being controlled by Iran. The Shia want to keep power, so the SCIRI and DAWA factions mostly like having U.S. military muscle propping up al Maliki's government. The Mahdi Army, on the other hand, wants us out -- Iraq for Iraqis.

Plus, there are all the various tribal regional powers who have their own rivalries and power struggles and shifting alliances.

Everyone has their own agenda, and ALL of them will happily layer on whatever bullshit they think the U.S. might want to hear if it looks like it might help their position in the ongoing jostling for power and control.

Anyone with any common sense ALREADY knows that Iran has nothing to do with the Sunni insurgency -- but the Sunnis aren't the only insurgents.

sw