The Iraqi Insurgency

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I read this:

“The surge was the right thing to do at the right time,” Rumsfeld said, giving Bush “a whale of a lot of credit” for pulling the trigger on it.  “He galvanized opinion in Iraq” as well as in the US, Rumsfeld says, which was important to bolster the new Iraqi government and the connections between the US and Iraqi forces.  The intelligence hadn’t indicated that a broad-based insurgency would take place, and by 2006 it became clear that the US needed to recast its strategy.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/10/lunch-with-donald-rumsfeld/

Emphasis mine.

I brought this up numerous times back during my tenure at protestwarior.com (before it went Ronulan).

The lefties loved to screech that Saddam had ****-all to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda. While the former is certainly true the latter is debateable. I usually pointed out that the AUMF vs Iraq cited support of terrorists 3:1 over WMD but lefties ignore that which is inconvenient.

However, all sides do admit the insurgency was unforeseen.

Why is that?

Because the conventional wisdom said Saddam and al Qaeda were at best suspicious neighbors of each other.

Yet, as soon as the void manifested itself in Iraq al Qaeda came rushing in.

Why?

First and foremost it seems they were looking for a base of operations and if they could gain an entire nation-state with all that entailed they would no longer being the visiting former frat brother crashing on your couch, they would be national rulers complete with a seat at the UN, a military, oil fields, a strategic position, etc.

It was worth it to them.

So they dumped virtually every asset in men, materiels, money and technical knowledge. The prize made the investment worth the gamble.

Moreover the professional left were the strategic asset they needed to win the political victory their tactics were based upon. Yes, that means the liberals have the blood of US service members and Iraqi civilians on their hands because they were the other side of al Qaeda's minted coin.

Maybe AQ never wanted to be anything more than fair weather friends with Saddam but when the chance presented itself they leapt.

The US military, to its ever-lasting credit, overcame that surprise attack and defeated the enemy. Not just piecemeal but resoundingly. Where once AQ looked to take entire nations it is now broke, bankrupt and reduced to trying to pick off the odd airliner with bombs where their balls should be.

[FreeBorn]

Great points.
No doubt AQ is looking at Egypt with lustful eyes right now, eager to fill any developing power vacuum emerging there as they did in Iraq. I find the reign of Mubarak to be comparable to that of Saddam Hussein in that both kept law and order through an iron fist approach which prevented any opposing groups from being at each other's throats.
Once the U.S. invaded Iraq in '03 and Saddam ran for his spider hole we saw the emergence of a civil war, Iraqis fighting Iraqis while they fought us at the same time too. Same thing happened when the Soviets evaporated leaving the Croats and the Serbs to have at each other once more as they always had in the past.
Now we may be seeing the same sort of development in Egypt, civil war. Egypt is very much up for grabs right now and AQ will certainly emerge as one of the players.
One thing is lacking in Egypt though as compared to Iraq, no U.S. troop presence. During the Iraq surge Nancy Lugosi did her best to foment trouble with Turkey where we had vital supply bases and access through Turkey's airspace. She dragged up "The Armenian question", accusing the Turks of genocide in WWI in a bid to cut off our troops in the field and bring about their failure on the battlefield and thus GW's failure as C-in-C. Aiding and abetting the enemy for political reasons at the cost of America's security. Now we have Glorious Comrade Leader backing the MB which is comprised no doubt partially by AQ at a time when he as C-in-C should at least be denouncing this threat if not moving against it militarily. The result is the same, America's security is weakened by the leftists giving support to our enemies. Disgusting.