First, Ignore The Neocons

Robert Dreyfuss
August 18, 2005

Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in the fall.

On August 14, The Washington Post reported that Iraqi Sunni insurgents joined in battle not against U.S. occupation forces but against the radical-fundamentalist battalions of Abu Musab Zarqawi and his “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” It was a highly significant story that was totally overlooked by the rest of the media. Yet this account provides new support for the idea that the mainstream Sunni resistance in Iraq is a potential partner with which the United States can negotiate in getting out of Iraq.

Getting out of Iraq is becoming more important as the constitutional crisis escalates and the country descends into civil war. According to the Post story:

Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city. … The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. … Masked men distributed leaflets that declared the city's tribes would fight "Zarqawi's attempt to turn Ramadi into a second Fallujah," referring to the nearby city that U.S. forces wrested from insurgent control in November. Statements posted on walls declared in the name of the Iraqi-led Mohammed's Army group that "Zarqawi has lost his direction" and strayed "from the line of true resistance against the occupation."

Who, you might ask, is Mohammed’s Army? In Arabic, it is Jaish Mohammed. According to Aiham Al Sammarae, who has stepped forward to advocate negotiations between the Iraqi insurgency and the U.S. and Iraqi governments, Mohammed’s Army is a leading insurgent group led by Iraqi Baathists who were ousted after the fall of Saddam. Sammarae, a former minister of electricity during the 2003-2004 interim government, has founded the National Assembly for the Unity and Reconstruction of Iraq as a vehicle for seeking a negotiated peace in Iraq that could tie a U.S. withdrawal to a ceasefire by the resistance.