NEWS: Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi

And if America hadn't invaded? No al-Qaeda in Iraq then, right?

Yes, that is true too.

Good job Mr. Michael_J_Totten

I will print this out and bring it to work tommorow.
Keep up the good work!

Maybe, maybe not...
Sadam would still be in power, Colin Powell might still have a job, and my taxes would still be high.

Back the the Iraq thing (enough of my rants). I dont know if Sadam was sympathic to Al-Qaeda or not. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. I'd guess he was slightly for them. Did he feed and bath them? My guess is no. Did he support their mission and goals? Probably. Did he give them everything they wanted and more? I doubt it.
Pre-invasion Iraq wasn't exactly rolling in money with an almost world wide embargo on Iraq's oil, and other exports.
Spare cash was pretty hard to come by. Yeah some companies got busted for trying the skirt the embargo and buy directly, but it was few and far between. Look at what the embargo has done with Cuba? That place from what I've heard is stuck in the 50's.

Had the invasion not happend things would be different there? Yes, better in some respects, but not in all. Either way there would be, and still are, roving death squads. I guess you win on some and lose on some too.

Just my two cents....

that is one of the most thrilling things i've read in a long time. and it just goes to prove that the US can't win the war, not alone - it's really Iraq's war now, and without Iraq fighting for it's own future along side our troops there, the whole country is almost certainly fucked.

Yeah cause the only country in the world al-Qaeda wasn't in just happened to be Iraq.

Clearly the US should invade every country that may have a terrorist cell. Are you seriously still hanging on to the Al-Qaeda/Saddam/9-11"link" bullshit?

A remarkable story that finally gives a truly realistic view of what is happening in Iraq. Thank you!

Michael, thank you for some wonderful reporting. It's refreshing to see something based more on the views of the Iraqi populace and the Army and Marine personnel there, whose views and experiences probably matter more than anyone. That said, I'd like to hear you own views on what might be the best step for America at this juncture, based on your experiences so far in Iraq. Stay? Leave? Limited withdrawal? Any other options? Other than that, great article. Keep safe.

I should add, by way of a more complete answer, that Zarqawi was in Iraq before we were. But his gang would clearly not have been allowed by Saddam to seize cities.

I'm glad it is not up to me.

The way I see it, we're screwed ifwe stay and even more screwed if we leave.

I think we should at least stay until Al Qaeda is purged from the entire country, which appears all but inevitable at this point the way things are going. They are obviously beatable. The Mahdi Army might not be. I don't know. They are less extreme and less likely to be rejected by the entire society.

Al Qaeda is a threat to America, obviously. The Mahdi Army probably isn't.

If the other insurgent groups cannot be beaten, coopted, or moderated by General Petraeus and the Iraqi government then they probably can't be effectively dealt wtih by anybody.

The occupation of Iraq was handled very badly for years. Petraeus is going about it the right way. If anyone can fix Iraq, he can, and if he can't, no one can and we should probably leave...very carefully.

Honestly, though, I am glad it is not up to me. I'm torn and change my mind often about whether this is winnable and how long we should stay. Obviously Ramadi and Fallujah (similar story there as in Ramadi) were winnable, but Baghdad might not be. And Baghdad is what matters the most in the end.

Each place in Iraq is very different from every other place, and I haven't seen every place. And I'm not an expert. I've just been there and seen some things and some places. It is the most complicated country, by far, I have ever been to in my life.

I will also say this:

Last year I voted for Democrats in Congress, not because I wanted to withdraw from Iraq but because Bush's Iraq policy was catastrophically broken. I honestly think the current policy is the best one we can possibly have under the circumstances. Whether it will work or not, I don't know. My guess is the odds of success are around 30 percent. So much damage has been done that the best policy might not be good enough.

None of us really know, though. Ramadi was so bad just a few months ago that even the Marines thought it was lost forever. But that turned out to be wrong.

Just about anything can happen in Iraq, and it can happen very quickly. Maybe it will get dramatically better soon, and maybe it will totally crater.

Sorry to be vague, it's just really complicated and unpredictable. I don't want to come off like I'm an expert or can predict the future. I've been wrong lots of times trying to figure out what will happen or what's going on in Iraq, and I'm done thinking I know more than I do. I prefer reporting to opinion writing partly because I'm less likely to write something stupid.

Actually, our invasion and occupation your taxes will be paying for for years. Decades, perhaps.

Al Qaeda is an Islamist organization. They don't particularly care for Iraq or the Iraqis, their aims are to take over a failed state over there and use it as a base to take control over the neighboring U.S.-allied Islamic states and the occasional mostly secular states (Turkey and to a lesser extent Syria).

Iraq HAD BEEN a secular Arab-nationalist state under Saddam. Outside of a common enemy (the U.S.) Saddam was one of Al Qaeda's worst enemies in the area. While Saddam was a brutal dictator, his regime served as a good counterbalance to what we helped Iran become.

By taking him out we took out Iran's number one enemy a year or two after taking out their number two (the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban on their other side). We've made a mess for our allies in the region. Turkey now has a Shia dominated neighbor to the South (which COULD become an Islamist regime ala Iran) and a largely independent and American-armed independent Kurdistan across its border.

The Saudis also have a Shia dominated Iraq with only tiny Kuwait in between them and Iraq. And now they have Iran gaining in power and influence due to our actions.

I appreciate this comment more than you will ever realize. That being said, I do appreciate your attempt at bringing first hand, personal experience to the people despite my own problems I may have had with it in the past. Good luck and stay safe.

that's what America most needs to understand. there is nothing that makes Iraq a country except lines on a map. saddam held it together through fear. would 3 states really be that awful in the end?

Probably not, if the Sunnis can get some oil somehow. The real problem, though, is that a lot of people will have to die to turn Iraq into three states. And there are so many mixed families that you'll have to cut right through the middle of some people's heads.

iraq in Fragments is a terrific (while somewhat dated) movie. There is a powerful dialogue toward the end between an Iraqi child and an old man.

Historian Niall Ferguson says when he hears someone say Iraq should be cut into three pieces, he reaches for his revolver.

Every option in Iraq is bad, including withdrawal which would likely lead to the destruction of the country. Americans are good at fixing things, but Iraq is a wicked problem and there may be no solution.

Fantastic article. What a mess.

I'm not sure that dividing a land into tribal arenas is a viable response to global integration. Admittedly, secular Arabic perspectives remain strong throughout much of the Middle East; however, the effort should be to bring these disparate communities together instead of building false, and arguably weak walls between them.

With a price tag of $4 billion a month, you will end up paying for this. Out of your taxes. Over decades. Probably until you die.

HIGH FIVE, logic man!

I wish these articles were on a non-SG site somewhere so I could educate the morons at work with them.

www.michaeltotten.com

That picture of the dragon made me cry.

I wish certain other writers on this site shared your level of humility.

Excellent article.

You betray a very callous and cavalier attitude toward 1.2 million civilian deaths and four million refugees.

------------------------------------------------Annie Dillard, For the Time Being