The Resistance

September 24, 2004

The Federation of American Scientists has posted a very interesting article from Al Zawra , an Iraqi weekly published by the Iraqi Journalists Association, that provides an unprecedented (for me, at least) look at the size and shape of the resistance groups in Iraq. It’s an amazing account, if it’s accurate.

First it cites the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance, founded in July 2003, the National Front for the Liberation of Iraq, founded in April 2003 (a coalition of 10 groups), the Iraqi Resistance Islamic Front, a Sunni organization, and then a bunch of smaller ones, with details on each.

Then it lists the Baathist groups, including Al Awdah (The Return) and others, which are not Islamist, and describes Shiite groups, including Muqtada Al Sadr’s organization.

And finally, it describes about a dozen kidnapping and terrorist organizations, including Zarqawi’s beheaders.

Here’s an excerpt from it. You can read the whole thing here :

After the fall of Baghdad into the hands of the Anglo-American occupation on 9 April 2003, as a natural reaction, several sectors of Iraqi society confronted the occupation. Resistance cells were formed, the majority of which were of Islamic Sunni and pan-Arab tendencies. These cells started in the shape of scattered groups, without a unifying bond to bind them together.

These groups and small cells started to grow gradually, until they matured to some extent and acquired a clear personality that had its own political and military weight. Then they stated to pursue combining themselves into larger groups.

The majority of these groups do not know their leadership, the sources of their financing, or who provides them with weapons. However, the huge amounts of weapons, which the Saddam Husayn regime left behind, are undoubtedly one of the main sources for arming these groups. These weapons include mortars, RPGs, hand grenades, Kalashnikovs, and light weapons.

Their intellectual tendencies are usually described as a mixture of Islamic and pan-Arab ideas that agree on the need to put an end to the US presence in Iraq.

These groups have common denominators, the most important of which perhaps are focusing on killing US soldiers, rejecting the abductions and the killing of hostages, rejecting the attacks on Iraqi policemen, and respecting the beliefs of other religions. There is no compulsion to convert to Islam, this stems from their Islamic creed, their reading of the jurisprudence texts and historical events, and their respect for the directives and appeals of the Islamic organizations and religious dignitaries.

What’s important about the resistance, as Jimmy Carter recently pointed out , is that the opposition to the United States is growing because we are there:

Carter said bloodshed in the country "would be tremendously reduced" if Iraqis knew U.S. troops were not there to stay.

The former president, answering written questions at a Carter Center forum, said the perception among Iraqis of a long-term U.S. military presence is the main reason the violence continues.

If we get out, it will peter out. That doesn’t mean Iraq will avoid a civil war, but if we pull out in the right way, we might be able to arrange things so that the central government holds. But that will mean that we encourage a real Iraqi government, one in which Iraqi nationalists, Baathists, communists, Islamists and other “unfriendlies” are amply represented. And then we’ll have to live with that. Or, we could stay and get chewed up for the next 10 years.