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Analysis: Arming Iraq's Sunni Insurgents

Council on Foreign Relations

June 13, 2007
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

The key to understanding progress in Iraq may be in the metrics. U.S. troops are expected to hit their high point at the end of June. Current numbers stand at around 150,000, according to the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, the highest levels since May 2003. Moreover, Iraqi security forces are just shy of 350,000, a threefold increase from their May 2004 levels.

Yet the violence, sectarian or otherwise, has only worsened, particularly outside the capital. Insurgents recently blew up (ABC) the minarets on an important Shiite shrine in Samarra, the site of a February 2006 bombing that marked a major turning point in the war. Iraqi civilians are still dying at a rate of around one hundred per day. May was one of the war’s most deadly months for U.S. forces. Monthly attacks by insurgents are now well over four thousand. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government appears as divided as ever and looks likely not to meet many of the political “benchmarks” set by U.S. lawmakers (NYT).

A rare bit of good news comes from Anbar province, where violence has receded in recent months. As reported in the New York Times, the U.S. military has undertaken a risky plan to arm Sunni factions with ammunition and cash to exploit a growing wedge between homegrown ex-Baathists and foreign Islamists. In exchange, the Sunnis have agreed to furnish U.S. officers with intelligence (i.e. the locations of roadside bombs).

Military analysts question the efficacy of the so-called “Anbar model” strategy. First, it runs the risk of arming one side in a potential civil war.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.