Whether or not the Iraqi foreign minister is right that sectarian warfare won't break out as a result of al Qaeda bombings, this is interesting:
Zebari said the government is responsible for maintaining security but has asked the U.S. for counterterrorism and intelligence assistance as well as military equipment to help respond to the recent increase in violence and resurgence of al-Qaida.
"Because of the urgency, they (the U.S.) have responded positively to our need because of the common enemy, which is al-Qaida," Zebari said, noting that U.S. assistance has been especially useful along the Iraq-Syria border.
The Americans have also helped with aerial surveillance, he said, but a request for drones is still "being processed."
Recon and intelligence people are good.
We use armed drones in the region. Why wouldn't we use them in Iraq as long as the Iraqis are asking?
And shouldn't we send our special forces back in to help at this point? Or is the Obama administration wedded to the idea that al Qaeda can't possibly be in Iraq?
Further, is the al Qaeda threat the only one we should be helping defeat?
Iran-backed Shia death squads could be a major threat to stability:
As the government tries to put down the Sunni insurgency, it now faces rising unrest among members of the country’s Shiite majority, who are becoming more determined to take up the fight themselves. This is perhaps expressed most vividly in the sentiments stirring Sadr City, home to many former fighters in Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, who had largely put down their weapons in recent years and put their faith in the political process.
But now that their community faces a deadly streak of terrorist violence, and believes the government incapable of protecting them, that is changing, demonstrated by the protests and unrest this week in Sadr City.
Remember that the Sunni Arab terrorist plan for victory includes the improbable train of events that goes from Sunni terrorism, which inflicts heavy casualties on Iraqi Shias and Sunnis who oppose Sunni Arab terrorism, which causes a violent Shia reaction against innocent Sunni Arabs, which leads Iraq's Sunni Arabs to rely on al Qaeda terrorists for protection from the Shia backlash, which leads to Sunni Arab countries intervening in the Iraq fight on the side of the Sunni Arabs, which leads to the Sunni Arab minority retaking power in Iraq.
Sure, it is likely that the chain will stop at the Shia backlash and take a detour into the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs from Iraq, but whatever. The Sunni Arabs have a plan and they'll ride it out to the end.
If we can't interrupt the chain at the Sunni Arab terrorism part because we aren't putting enough of the right resources back into Iraq, we'll face a broader threat that includes angry Shia fanatics, too, that threatens to ignite a civil war in Iraq. As Syria--which has already nearly matched the casualty levels of the much longer Iraq War--shows, then we'll know what a bloody civil war in Iraq looks like.
We need a shadow surge of counter-terrorism forces while this is still a terrorism problem. If we can do that, the only real reaction will be at the polls as the government suffers election setbacks as voters punish the rulers for failing to act to stop the rise in terror attacks.
