Iraq: If It's Too Good To Be True It Isn't

Sheik Abdel Sittar Baziya is a key Anbar Awakening leader

There's an old saying that if it’s too good to be true then it probably isn't. So it comes as no surprise that it the so-called Anbar Awakening is a racket where money talks the loudest and when the money runs out so will its adherents.

The Anbar Awakening is the name given the U.S. effort to wean Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province away from the Sunni insurgency in general and Al Qaeda in particular.

It is no secret that the U.S. is funding and arming the Anbar Salvation Council, the ad hoc umbrella organization that is encouraging the tribes to come in from the cold. To give credit where it is due, the effort seems to have succeeded to an extent despite the fractious nature of the tribal culture in the vast province west of Baghdad, although not to the extent that pro-war commentators and bloggers have endlessly trumpeted.

This because, when all is said and done, the tribes have been more interested in the almighty dollar than throwing their support behind a Baghdad government that is openly hostile to Sunni interests.

Alas, the Washington Post reports today that the Anbar Awakening has indeed been too good to be true:

"A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar Province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics. . . .

"[T]he divisions within the coalition underscore what many see as a central dilemma: Should the United States be sponsoring profit-oriented tribal groups that involve themselves in sometimes fragile alliances and that could turn against U.S. troops?

" 'The question with a group like this always is, does it stay bought?' said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to suggestions that the United States is paying for loyalty from the tribes."

More here.

Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev for Time magazine