Did you get a chance to read this?
By the way the "Abu Abed" guy that they refer to in the article and who has turned against Al Qaeda terrorists is very much hated on Al Qaeda terrorist forums. They talk about him a lot, they hate him and they fear a lot.
Can you talk about these developments a bit? What exactly is happening?...
And where is this good news being reported in The New York Times and in the American mainstream media?...
Ledeen: I don't read the New York Times, so I can't speak to that. I read Bill Roggio and Michael Yon and various miblogs to find out what's going on in Iraq... we are engaged in a regional war, of which Iraq is just one front. As Petraeus said in his testimony, you can't win in Iraq if you only fight in Iraq....
Roggio: ...it is far too early to declare victory against al Qaeda in Iraq... The exact time period when al Qaeda in Iraq may have been defeated won't be obvious until we look back some years from now and are able to study this more closely. We may very well be witnessing al Qaeda in Iraq's demise right now, but it is too early too tell....
McCarthy: ...I'd note that, unlike Michael, I do read the New York Times -- at least as long as I've had my Prilosec... the report that Qaeda has been routed in Baghdad consigned to page A-19, while page one is given over to more important stuff ... like running down a full-employment economy... It cannot be won in Iraq alone. But it can be lost in America alone....
Gartenstein Ross: ...there are signs of political reconciliation -- something that advocates of quick withdrawal argue is not occurring. One example of this is a "fatwa against violence" issued jointly by Sunni and Shia clergy in an attempt to foster reconciliation between the factions... it is too early to declare AQI's defeat....
Gartenstein Ross: ...I worry less than Daveed does about unsavory "allies" at this stage. As he knows, our troops know they have to stop this sort of behavior, and they are getting better at doing just that. But we also have to focus on the urgent questions of the moment, such as getting a better grip on border security vs. Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia....
Roggio: ...My direct experience in Iraq tells me this is not true. Iraqis have been disgusted by al Qaeda's attacks on all sects of Iraqis... I have run into this sentiment from several different across Iraq. In East Rashid, I met Sunnis who were horrified how al Qaeda ran out their Christian neighbors. In the mixed town of Haswa south of Baghdad, which sits along a sectarian fault line, Sunni and Shia banded together to fight both al Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army. In Anbar, US Army Captain Travis Patriquin is mourned as a martyr for his support of the tribes' fight against al Qaeda....
Gartenstein-Ross: ...Regardless of our differences over the Iraq war, the Europeans -- who have been the target of a great number of terrorist plots -- derive no less benefit than we do from keeping militant Islam at bay. Even as the U.S. carries a disproportionate burden in the fight against Islamic extremism, other major challenges are emerging. China is ascending in power, as is a Russia that drifts ever closer to a new totalitarian rule. The world is hurtling toward an energy crunch likely to affect all aspects of life. Our nation faces an aging infrastructure, ecological challenges, and possible crises in entitlement spending. Put simply, we need resources -- financial and otherwise -- to successfully address these issues. We therefore need to work out more equitable burden sharing for the global war on terror....
Ledeen: ...our allies are feckless, just as they were during the Cold War. Several European countries contribute "troops" to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, but they aren't fighters. They aren't permitted to shoot, they deliver pizza and medical supplies, which is a good thing but not enough... and we must be ready to cope with China... and Russia. We also have to have some sort of Iran strategy, especially as the mullahs are now allied with unsavory tyrants in South America and of course with Fidel... It is unreasonable to expect them to enthusiastically join with us unless we have a strategy to win the real war, the big war, just as it is unreasonable to expect Iraqi leaders to enthusiastically join with us unless we have a strategy to defeat Iran and Syria (and grab the Saudis by the throat and make them shut down their global assembly line of new terrorists)....
Roggio: ...until we create a unified strategy to tackle our enemies, be they al Qaeda and its allies or Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, it will be difficult for our allies to fully stand behind this... Until we define who the enemy is and how to tackle them, we will continue to plod along. This is not an easy thing to do. For us to define our enemies, our allies -- and the US -- must face up to some unsettling facts about extremism, political correctness, and a host of other issues I am sure are a topic for another Symposium....
McCarthy: Respectfully, I'm not interested in anything so trite as whether the Iraqis like us -- I don't particularly care whether they do. I want to know where those who lead them will stand if the time comes when we need them... I'm less impressed by the enmity Iraqis in general may have for Iran than I am by the inroads the Iranian regime has made with Iraq's new government (and, for that matter, Afghanistan's new government). The issue is an important one because it goes to the question whether our enterprise in Iraq is one worth repeating or whether we will need to develop some strategy other than nation-building (I won't say democracy-promotion because that's a different subject) for confronting the threats we face in the Islamic world....
Gartenstein-Ross: ...Nor do I think Sistani's frequently intolerant views should be at the forefront of our concerns when it comes to Islamic terrorism... Even following the devastating February 2006 bombing of the al-Askariya mosque in Samarra, Sistani urged restraint through his network of representatives in neighborhoods, mosques, seminaries, and bazaars. "After every bombing," Nasr writes, "Shia mosques associated with Sistani would tell their congregations that it was not their Sunni neighbors who were killing them but foreign 'Wahhabis.'"...
Ledeen: ...If we win that war, and Iran and Syria have free governments, I would expect those governments to be pro-Western in the broadest sense, and even pro-American. Iraq would sing from the same hymnal. And I will be fascinated to watch the effect on Turkey, about which I worry quite a lot. If we lose the big war, it will come to us, probably a lot sooner than most people think....
Roggio: ...There are also rumors of special forces raids inside Iran, launched from the Iraqi side of the border. The senior leadership of the Iraqi government and military are no doubt aware of these raids....
McCarthy: ...An Iraq that is an Iranian sphere of influence is an Iraq that will be a haven for terrorists... The post-Saddam emergence of Iraq will be remembered as an American success if the country develops a real, stable national identity that is resistant to Iranian influence. (I see no reason, by the way, why that identity has to be cultivated from the top down by the central government; I have far more faith in Petraeus and our troops, building it from the ground up.)...
Gartenstein-Ross: ...I will say, however, that Fallows's book (which compiles a number of articles he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly) was quite prescient in its analysis and warnings. It is far from an exercise in blind partisanship... it is worth recalling T.E. Lawrence's memorable line from the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia: "Nothing is written." That is, the future is not inevitable: the actions we take now can change it.