Iraq Insurgency: Underestimating Nationalism

On Dec. 13, 2003, U.S. troops found former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole near Tikrit, his hometown. Hussein's capture was heralded as a turning point in the war, a sign that coalition forces were indeed making progress against the insurgency. A year later, Stratfor reflects on an insurgency that has taken on a distinct life of its own. In the wake of the insurgency's deadliest attack against U.S. forces Dec. 21 in Mosul, we continue this four-part series with part two, a look at the nationalist guerrilla movement.

Of the three main guerrilla movements in Iraq -- nationalist, Shiite and jihadist -- the first makes up the core and leadership of the insurgency. It might not always be that way -- not if the Shiite community rises en masse -- but the Iraq war is being shaped by a well-trained, Sunni-led militant nationalist movement that essentially has nothing to lose.

Perhaps the most misunderstood militants in Iraq are the nationalist guerrillas, who were viewed a year ago as mainly former regime officials (mostly Sunni) who had the most to lose by a democratic (and largely Shiite) government in Iraq. While it is true that the nationalist movement is mostly Sunni and includes former soldiers and regime members, it also is clear that any Baathist orientation the movement might have is largely irrelevant.

Iraqi tribal sources say even those nationalist guerrillas who associate themselves with the Baathist Party are not trying to preserve the unity of the party or make it a leading force in the nationalist movement. Moreover, sources say, the vast majority of Baathists in the nationalist ranks are convinced the future of Iraq and the future of the Baath Party have nothing to do with Saddam Hussein.

The continuation of the insurgency, and its increased effectiveness over the last year, is more a result of a growing distaste for Western occupation then any loyalty to the former Iraqi ruler or his political party. With Shia a majority in Iraq, some Sunni insurgents are naturally motivated by fear that they would lose power in any democratically elected government. Members of a former ruling minority suddenly faced with the rise of the Shia, a once-oppressed majority, might want to go out fighting. In any case, in spite of the fact that most nationalist guerrillas are Sunnis, like Hussein, the former Iraqi leader has had little to do with inspiring or sustaining nationalist insurgent operations.

So far, of the three insurgent movements in Iraq -- nationalist guerrillas, Shiite militants and jihadists -- nationalist insurgents have had the most significant impact on the U.S.-led war effort. However, this impact has had more to do with the military aspects of the campaign than U.S. political decision-making. The movement posing the greatest potential for influencing events strategically in Iraq is the Shiite resistance. If it expands beyond Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army to embrace other Shiite segments of Iraqi society, and if it is blessed by the country's top Shiite religious authority, then the Shiite guerrillas will dominate the insurgency.

At this stage of the war, one could argue the impact of the Shiite insurgency is mainly political while the impact of the nationalist insurgency is mainly military. Indeed, nationalist guerrillas are, and likely will remain, the most skilled, organized and numerous of the insurgent forces fighting the coalition. Barring a general Shiite uprising, the outcome of the coalition's drawn-out and exhaustive fight with nationalist guerrillas, likely to last several years, will ultimately decide the victor in Iraq. If the Shia rise on a large scale, however, it will be their fight with the coalition that determines the outcome of the war.

In any event, the nationalist guerrillas likely will continue to influence U.S. strategy in at least one important way. In the near term and likely long term, if Washington ever wants to use its military presence in Iraq to project power elsewhere in the Middle East, its forces cannot remain mired in a counterinsurgency. Since it is the Sunni-led nationalist movement that provides the bulk of insurgent forces, the United States must decisively beat or check this movement, preferably with Shiite and Kurdish help. As a superpower, of course, the United States can strike Saudi Arabia or Syria any time it wants, but it cannot do so effectively with a nationalist-led insurgency unabated in Iraq.

On the operational level, it also is the nationalist guerrillas who have the greatest influence on U.S. decisions regarding force structure, weapon systems and equipment used in Iraq. Deadly attacks by nationalist guerrillas not only make the Pentagon pay more attention to such innovations as better battlefield intelligence capabilities and up-armored Humvees, they also influence U.S. troop deployments worldwide, as well as national security and strategic military planning. (Only later will we know what military actions or demonstrations in other parts of the world had to be canceled or postponed because of the growing guerrilla war in Iraq.)

In the end, it will be the nationalist guerrillas who will have done more to stretch and shape U.S. forces and their resources than any other movement in Iraq.

In many ways, the nationalist guerrilla influence in Iraq seems less spectacular than that of the Shiite guerrillas with their thunderous urban uprisings or the jihadists with their suicide bombings. It is true that two al-Sadr-led Shiite uprisings in April and August and September 2004 forced the United States to respond with major counteroffensives, but the Shiites never caused the United States much pain militarily. On the other hand, almost all major U.S. operations in Iraq, from the Ramadan counteroffensive in 2003 to two major assaults against Al Fallujah to the quelling of uprisings in Mosul, have been instigated by Sunni-led nationalist guerrillas.

While the jihadist bombings, in particular, have a demoralizing effect on Iraqi government forces, it is the systematic and dogged attacks by nationalist insurgents that have caused government forces to crumble, leaving U.S. troops without meaningful local support. Major desertions of Iraqi troops and officers in Al Fallujah and As Samarra occurred when they were faced with fighting nationalist insurgents. While some government troops are too frightened to face nationalist guerrillas in combat, others refuse to fight them out of sympathy for their cause -- namely, the liberation of Iraq. This has led to the growing clandestine cooperation between nationalist guerrillas and Iraqi security personnel, who provide insurgents with intelligence about the movements and vulnerabilities of U.S. forces.

Indeed, the nationalist insurgents have amply demonstrated their ability to alter U.S. behavior in Iraq. The nationalist-led 2003 Ramadan offensive, for example, made the U.S. command commit the bulk of its combat forces to simultaneous counterinsurgency operations across the country for the first time in the war. In Al Fallujah in April and May, nationalist-led insurgents made the United States "retreat" for the first time in the war (for political as well as military reasons) while the insurgents held their ground. This led the guerrillas to believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that U.S. troops could be defeated in set-piece battles (emboldened nationalists tried to reiterate this point when they turned Baghdad's major Haifa Street into a no-go zone for U.S. troops for several months in 2004). The first battle of Al Fallujah also changed the way the United States deals with insurgents. Now Washington would negotiate, as well as fight, though it remains unclear whether negotiating will yield the kind of results Washington wants.

The second battle for Al Fallujah in November and December 2004 -- which is still simmering -- marked the first time in the war when one battle created a large flare-up of fighting in other cities. Al Fallujah II also was the first battle in the war where guerrilla commanders -- virtually all nationalists -- were able to deploy insurgent forces on an operational level, shifting some units from Al Fallujah to Ar Ramadi and Mosul and turning the latter locations into major battlegrounds as well, thus causing the U.S. command to redeploy and significantly reinforce its combat units.

If the Sunni's are "nationalist guerrillas" then why do they put out the welcome mat for salafist (Islamist) terrorists who are killing fellow Sunnis by the thousands? And none of that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" BS. Stratfor's so-called "nationalist guerrillas" are the remnants of a secular-fascist Iraqi power-structure hanging on by its fingernails. Should they succeed in weakening the will power of America the Kurds and Shiites will show Stratfor who the real nationalist guerrillas are. And, by the way, the Baathists are not dead as long as fellow Baathists in Syria continue to fund the "nationalist guerrilla" activity.

Your criticisms of the author's points are all good.

What the writer forgot is the Ba'athists ruled Iraq BEFORE Saddam became dictator, and they did the same stuff then that he had them doing after he took over.

To a degree this piece seems to be a Ba'athist "coverup". I suspect that one of Saddam's henchmen with access to some serious money paid for it.

The Ba'ath party used every treacherous method to brutalize the Shi'ites and others in Iraq.

They rule the same way they fight war, not seeing any difference in the two. Many anaysts have observed that this is the essence of primitive tribalism.

Whether we wipe out the Ba'athists, or the new Iraqi government does the job doesn't make any difference. In the end it must be done.

They rule the same way they fight war,

Very good observation because it goes to the core issues in the conflict.

The great majority of the Iraqi people are the "nationalists" and the so-called insurgent terrorists are using proven methods to try and dominate them.

Probably the biggest problem in this whole process is the fact that Iraqis are familiar with terror as a ruling tool and unfamiliar with the rule of law. They respond more readily to one than they do the other. Some of them are beginning to catch on though. Let's hope that the American people don't bug out too soon.

There is almost nothing in this assessment to provide comfort and much that is extremelx disquieting.

First, is the absence of any indication that we are making progress anywhere.

Second, our frustrations are not limited to Iraq itself which have ominous implications for the whole of the world war against terror:

(Only later will we know what military actions or demonstrations in other parts of the world had to be canceled or postponed because of the growing guerrilla war in Iraq.)

Third, we are flat failing in the only known avenue toward victory and extraction of the force, the standing up of a competent and motivated Iraqi security force:

...it is the systematic and dogged attacks by nationalist insurgents that have caused government forces to crumble, leaving U.S. troops without meaningful local support. Major desertions of Iraqi troops and officers in Al Fallujah and As Samarra occurred when they were faced with fighting nationalist insurgents. While some government troops are too frightened to face nationalist guerrillas in combat, others refuse to fight them out of sympathy for their cause -- namely, the liberation of Iraq. This has led to the growing clandestine cooperation between nationalist guerrillas and Iraqi security personnel, who provide insurgents with intelligence about the movements and vulnerabilities of U.S. forces.

This observation leads me to believe that we are losing the most important battle of the war.

Fourth, just as ominous is the lurking threat of the Shia rising up against us. So far, they have not and why should they, we are dying for them doing their will. I cannot shake the image of Ho Chi Minn patiently waiting. The Shiia must know that the American public will not much longer support this war. That they will carry the elections. That they can take us on at any time and do so from the posture of legitimacy. We will become illegitimate after the election and a demand that we depart. They can simply invite us out after we kill enough Sunnis and fully arm the Shiia. We should then be utterly without moral standing to remain and the Shiia would be free to conduct a quiet revolution toward whatever theocratic terroristic state which they might fancy. Net result after the expenditure of blood and treasure: A second Iran teed up for the Shia courtesy of Uncle Sam.

No one accepts the need for victory in Iraq more than I do but the path to victory is never along the lane of wishful thinking. If this report is to be believed, and the mounting casualties suggest it is to be believed, we must change tactics or lose this war.

Further, if these cults are "nationalists" or "insurgents", fighting an "occupation", then all they would have to do is stop. Today. And we would leave after the elections.

Obviously they DO NOT want us to leave.

Why? Because killing American soldiers is fun, a glorious way to die, a tenant of their cult, and is paramount to their 7th century thinking to destroy the Jews and Christians along with reducing Amercian power.

All this gets them is good press, ie, they have been painted as "victims" of "occupation" by Israel.

For decades these Islamic cults and their cohorts, have been roaming the globe, murdering innocents with impunity.

With NO condemnation by the global-leftist press or the UN, the EU, China, Russia, ect, because this is a proxy war they fight against US and Israeli power.

Who will blink first? Will it be the American people?

Hopefully, the 50 million souls in Iraq and Afghanistan will have a chance at a civilized society, in what ever form they choose, as long as there is less breeding of their children into suicide cults.

Modernity is the goal, economic and religious.

Compared to virtually any other conflict in our history, there's almost nothing happening in Iraq. 60 years ago we were losing 500 soldiers a day in a single battle in the Ardennes!

For the most part Iraq has been pacified and life for everyone has improved tremendously. For one thing, Saddam Hussein is locked up and no one is getting tossed into plastic shredders anymore!

I have never seen so much defeatism arise out of so few problems in my life. Sounds like life is simply too difficult for some folks to live. May I recommend to them that they get out there old trusty bayonet, find a bowl, fill it with water, get a couple of towels, and then put an end to it all with a dignified traditional ceremony.

The rest of us can then get on with securing Iraq without all the moaning and groaning.

Unfortunately, defeatism has been an essential quality of a majority of Americans from the founding of the Republic. Patriots made up a minority of the people during the Revolution. The New York press screamed bloody murder all throughout the Mexican War. New Englanders by the tens of thousands bought their way out of enlistment in the Civil War. William Randolph Hearst and Woodrow Wilson had to lie to get us into war. Yes, World War II may have seemed popular, but at its core there was a large number of Socialists and Communists who fought only because the Soviet Union had been attacked. We couldn't win in Korea or Viet Nam, or so the same Reds said. Better Red than Dead was a catchword for years and millions went to fund "Peace" institutes sponsored by the USSR. We would lose 20-30,000 if we invaded in Operation Desert Storm. And now the same septic stratum of American society is back hoping for defeat in Iraq. The problem is, of course, that they control the MSM. The response? React as American patriots have always reacted. With fortitude and endurance.

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