Iraqi Insurgency Lacks Ingredients For Success

by Max Boot - June 27, 2005 - Christian Science Monitor

Support for the insurgency is confined to a minority within a minority - a small portion of Sunni Arabs, who make up less than 20 percent of the population. The only prominent non-Sunni rebel, Moqtada al-Sadr, has quietly joined the political process. The 80 percent of the population that is Shiite and Kurdish is implacably opposed to the rebellion, which is why most of the terrorism has been confined to four of 18 provinces.

Why are the American people starting to turn against the war? Have they forgotten 9/11? Are they unaware that the insurgency leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is a Jordanian aligned with Osama Bin Laden? Zarwawi "has alienated most of the Iraqi population, even many Sunnis, with his indiscriminate attacks on civilians". Has America really reached a point where we would rather throw away victory than win a war if winning is tough?

Who are this 20% of our people who have decided that we should not be in Iraq in the last 30 days? According to the polls (if you can believe them) 20% (one in five Americans) is how many have changed from a supporter of the war to being opposed. Look around you and take notice of who these people are. Ask them if they have any idea of the consequences of pulling out now. Do they think that Osama Bin Laden will stop his war (declared in writing in 1990) because they advocate we quit in Iraq?