Money will flow to Sunni Arabs to fight al Qaeda:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a striking change of course, is embracing the Sunni Muslim tribal fighters whose role in combating al Qaeda he had allowed to wither after U.S. troops left two years ago.
Al Qaeda-linked militants, feeding off widespread Sunni resentment at perceived mistreatment by his Shi'ite-led government, swept into the cities of Falluja and Ramadi two weeks ago in an embarrassing setback to Maliki.
Fear and hate still trump resentment and the perception of mistreatment, it seems. Thank goodness for small favors.
And getting the tribal militias involved will reduce the need for Iraqi government forces to attack Fallujah and Ramadi and risk alienating Sunnis with the inevitable collateral damage that will accompany a government effort to retake the cities.
So this is good news.
But Fallujah and Ramadi aren't retaken yet.
Once retaken, those victories must be followed by an effective effort partnering the Anbar militias with the Iraqi military to beat down al Qaeda to 2011 levels and then keep going to reduce them to nothing.
Hopefully, we act like we care about the outcome and provide intelligence, planning assistance, equipment (and I'm not speaking of F-16s and Apache helicopters, which are long-range assets that we really can't rush to Iraq unless we provide the pilots and ground crews, too), and even capabilities if required. Would it be so bad to provide air power (strike and recon) as well as training and maybe some special forces types on the ground?
At least Iraq is making a belated attempt to reconcile with Sunni Arabs to defeat al Qaeda.
