Opinion: Dust-Up III: Staying the course
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Halfway though this week’s dust-up, David B. Rivkin and Brian Katulis are still split on whether there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Today they’re opining on whether Sunnis have turned away from Islamism, and if Shiites will follow their lead.
Rivkin’s reading of the situation:
It would be premature to announce that Iraq’s Sunni Arabs have entirely forsaken Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, great strides have been made, and are being made, toward this goal.[...] The benefits of this cooperation extend far beyond Anbar province, let alone Iraq. The entire Islamic world can now see traditional, and undoubtedly religious, Sunnis making common cause with the United States military against a terrorist organization that purports to carry the banner of Islam.
But Katulis contends,
The simple fact is that Sunni Arab insurgent groups and tribes in Iraq were never all that close with Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its affiliates. Reports of divisions and outright fighting between more local-minded nationalist groups and those aligned with AQI had been bubbling up since 2004.
Read the whole exchange and shoot us your own comments here.