Elements of the Iraqi Insurgency and the Role of Security for Achieving Victory in Iraq

摘要

The extreme violence of the Iraqi insurgency has continued unabated despite the determination of U.S. and Iraqi forces to quell it. The continued violence has prevented full implementation of the United States' 'Victory in Iraq' strategy. The strategy is built upon three inter-related platforms of economic development, political engagement, and national security. The threat to domestic and national security serves as a major obstacle to reconstruction and the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces. U.S. military strategy has focused on eliminating insurgent networks, but this policy has failed in that the insurgents are more active and lethal than in any time previous. A policy change that identifies individual, root causes of the insurgency and then addresses each cause separately would be more flexible than the current policy, which assumes a monolithic view of the insurgency. This thesis argues that the insurgency is not monolithic, but rather a network of networks, and that it can be dissected along a number of different variables to enable a better approach to countering each insurgent sub-group. The author performs an in-depth examination of the principal groups in this war: the Sunnis, the Shi'ites, and criminal and transnational elements. By employing a policy of identifying, separating, and dealing with each sub-group individually, the insurgency is robbed of its power and momentum. Subsequently, Iraqi and Coalition forces would be able to stabilize the security environment, thus providing the sanctuary necessary for political engagement and economic development.