The Gangs of Iraq are killing each other off. What it has come down to is the gangs, militias and organizations that have been making a living planting roadside bombs and carrying out contract hits on American and Iraqi troops for the last three years, are being defeated by tribal and community groups fed up with the constant violence. The terrorist activity of the last three years was paid for by kidnapping, extortion, black market gasoline and so on, and wealthy Sunni Arabs eager to put the Baath party back into power. Religious leaders, who often took fees for allowing their mosques to be used as armories and safe houses, also preached against the heretical Shia, who now ruled the country. Now the pro-peace Sunni Arab clergy have displaced the pro-violence imams, and established their own "Council of Religious Scholars" to prove it.
Generally unnoticed over the last two years was a growing revolt within the Sunni Arab community. The Sunni Arab nationalists, the guys who supported Saddam and what he represented, did not have the backing of all Sunni Arabs. Neither did Saddam. And after Saddam fell, the fighting between Sunni Arabs began. Many Sunni Arabs greeted the Americans, and the prospect of democracy, with enthusiasm. These Sunni Arabs found themselves threatened by their fellow Sunnis, and distrusted by the majority Kurds and Shia. But the anti-Saddam Sunni Arabs have grown in number over the last three years, aided in part by the departure (for Syria, Jordan or internal exile) of nearly half the Sunni Arab community.
I figured the gang problem would be an easier nut to crack than the Baathists and terrorists that we are driving into the ground. And the civil war within the Iraqi Sunni Arab community that has been apparent for years (except to the press which only saw Shia-Sunni divides) is being won by the side that wants to surrender. These Sunni Arabs were never part of the Tikrit and Baathist mafia that extorted resources from all Iraqis. Again, when the flight of Sunni Arabs was reported in early 2006, I figured the trend of fleeing Iraqi Sunni Arabs was not a sign of failure but a sign of hope that we'd dry up the sea in which the Sunni Arab terrorist fish swam:
The reason these Sunnis flee now is that these backers of the former regime of Saddam are probably losing hope that their killers can sweep them back into power with their campaign of terror and intimidation.
The fact that backers of the Baathists are now leaving Iraq is not a sign that we are losing. It is a sign that the enemy is losing. They see little hope of running things any time soon and are getting out of town before the new cops come around with war crimes and human rights violation charges in hand. They see that even Saddam is in the witness stand with his own life on the line and have no desire to follow him to the gallows.
So don't transform the fleeing Sunnis into poor oppressed victims. They are former neck-stompers who have given up on their dreams of continuing their neck-stomping. This is a good thing.
In the absence of so many backers of the Baathist Sunni Arab rule, the Sunni Arabs who weren't strong enough to defeat this old guard are gaining dominance. Hopefully, Shias and Kurds will remember that they were not the only victims of Saddam's reign of terror and the al Qaeda terror campaign. Sunni Arabs were victims, too.
The trends in Iraq have been good for years now. These trends are finally paying off visibly.
