Everybody is Al Queda Now

Professor Cole again plainly states the confusion and complication that we face in Iraq. Clearly, there are so many moving parts there, and each facet of the conflict is colored by it's own particular narrative within the larger history of Iraq. He notes:

So the Sunni Arabs in Baquba are done out. They have a Shiite government in their province that they don't want, and they have a Shiite/Kurdish government in Baghdad that sends Shiite troops of the Iraqi Army against them. The Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baquba have thrown up local militias, and they have made alliances with Baathi and Salafi Jihadi cells.

What is all the more galling is that it has become evident over the last week that the administration has changed their rhetoric once again, and now refers to any and all Sunni insurgents as Al Queda. This is a shameful attempt to shore up support for the surge, and to tie the group responsible for 9/11 to the current chaos in Iraq. It is, of course, also a lie, as the president himself admitted when he said:

A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are by far the largest group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein -- and they reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant group. . . .

The second group that makes up the enemy in Iraq is smaller, but more determined. It contains former regime loyalists who held positions of power under Saddam Hussein -- people who still harbor dreams of returning to power. These hard-core Saddamists are trying to foment anti-democratic sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community. . . .

The third group is the smallest, but the most lethal: the terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda.

It's as if these guys stopped trying a long time ago.