To say a news item is "big" can often be a cliche, but I think it's appropriate in this case: Baathists 'disown al-Qaeda'
The leader of Iraq's banned Baath party, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, has decided to join efforts by the Iraqi authorities to fight al-Qaeda, one of the party's former top officials, Abu Wisam al-Jashaami, told pan-Arab daily Al Hayat.
"AlDouri has decided to sever ties with al-Qaeda and sign up to the programme of the national resistance, which includes routing Islamist terrorists and opening up dialogue with the Baghdad government and foreign forces," al-Jashaami said.
Al-Douri has decided to deal directly with US forces in Iraq, according to al-Jashaami. He figures in the 55-card deck of "most wanted" officials from the former Iraqi regime issued by the US government.
In return, for cooperating in the fight against al-Qaeda, al-Douri has asked for guarantees over his men's safety and for an end to Iraqi army attacks on his militias.
Forget "big." This is huge. Al-Douri took over leadership of the Baath Party in exile in 2003 or 2004 and, with Syrian help and Saddam's money, launched a guerrilla war against the Coalition and the nascent Iraqi government. Eventually he allied himself with Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, helping to keep Baghdad and the western Sunni regions of Iraq, especially Anbar province, in turmoil. If he's "flipped," it's a body-blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq's shrinking hopes for a victory. Now they'll have even less cover and fewer refuges, and those hunting them will include former allies who know a lot about AQII's methods and structures, and who are probably sharing it with the Americans and the Iraqi security forces. Al-Douri turning his coat ratchets up the pressure on al-Qaeda immensely, perhaps leading to its final defeat.
This may not be a turning point just in Iraq, however. As this Washington Post article shows, the increasingly undeniable successes of the "surge" strategy in Iraq are creating political problems for the Democrats, who've based their electoral hopes on an American defeat:
Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.
And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.
The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.
In other words, they're moving the goal posts. Faced with evident progress, the Democratic leadership is now saying "that's not good enough" and is blasting the Iraqi government for not making political progress. (Of course, given the current Congress' record, they should be careful before throwing those particular stones.) But political progress is a trailing indicator of military success -- enemies don't make concessions from positions of strength. And PM Maliki's evident success in turning al-Douri is political progress, something that could only have come about with the aggressive, continuous pressure put on al-Qaeda in Iraq by the surge.
The Copperheads Democrats and their Republican gelding allies face a real problem when General Petraeus makes his report in September. They voted the money for the surge a few months ago: confronted with the hard facts of major gains on the ground --including in the political sphere-- can they then say "Forget it. Start the pull-out now?" How will many of them justify to the electorate their vote for defeat when it finally looks like we have a strategy that works?
For the Democrats, al-Douri's turning highlights their major political problem. Their hardcore, active, big-money base is anti-war and anti-Bush. They want the war stopped, they want it stopped now, and they are aggressive in asserting their power. Democratic presidential candidates have fallen all over themselves trying to win this group's support, for example, attending the "Progressive" Yearly Kos conference. Can they and their Party afford to alienate their base and admit honestly that facts on the ground warrant giving the Iraq campaign more time? The general attitude of Americans in war is "win or get out." In other words, we're willing to put up with a lot if we're making progress, because we hate losing even more: the tailspin in Bush's popularity and support for the war can be directly tied to a failure to make any sustained progress from 2004-2006. And recent polls have shown an increase in support for the war as the situation has improved.
So, if the Democrats continue to placate their far left wing, they risk losing independent voters who don't want to see an American defeat. And they cannot win without these voters. Yet, if they give General Petraeus more time, they will almost surely alienate that left wing by seeming to support George Bush and the war they promised to stop.
Quite a dilemma.
(hat tip: Captain's Quarters)
LINKS: The Weekly Standard here and here. Blue Crab Boulevard, Sister Toldjah, and The Moderate Voice. On the Left, the Daily Kos weighs in.
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