LIKE FILTHY, DEAD MEAT

THE HERETIK KNOWS if you want a more honest appraisal of Iraq and the insurgency, read British papers like the Guardian first.  Then you may read it later here.  In the case of Abu Theeb, this story posted first in the Guardian and then in Washington Post.  The speed with which it arrived on these shores may be a telling point. And what this story tells tells us even more about the Bush administration’s explanations of what we are up against.

HALF TRUTHS may be the clothe of whole lies.  Bush claims outside terrorists lead the insurgency, and Sunni dissatisfaction is thus minimized.  Bush fails to recognize the Wahabi extremist strain in Al Q’aeda, which wars on the Shia majority it considers kaffir, apostates, worthy only of death in this world and hell in the next.  Bush presents an ideology of hatred and murder, so we rarely see the other, the enemy as a person.  So the introduction of  the person in the persona of Abu Theeb (“Father of the Wolf”) is a huge moment.

"Politics for us is like filthy dead meat," Abu Theeb told me. "We are not allowed to eat it, but if you are passing through the desert and your life depends on it, God says it's OK." This is a profound shift in thinking for these insurgents, a shift that might just change the way things develop in Iraq. . . .

BUSH HAS BEEN looking for this change, a way to bring the Sunnis into the political process and thus fracture the insurgency.  This is essential if the United States is ever to leave the cakewalk that became a quaqmire called Iraq.

"When the infidel conquers your home, it's like seeing your women raped in front of your eyes and like your religion being insulted every day," says Abu Theeb.

HOW IRAQIS VIEW themselves is quite different from how Bush does.  Liberate does not equate with conquer.  It is impossible for Bush to see that while many Iraqis hated Saddam, the Saddam base of Sunnis as well as other Iraqis hate the occupiers and their collaborators more.  The volatile mix stews. Bush is trying to put a lid on it.

He [Abu Theeb]and other Salafi fighters became known as the Anger Brigade, an insurgent group that has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on US and Iraqi targets and is involved in kidnapping those who are perceived as collaborating with the much-hated occupation.

AND BUSH does not hold the only claim on God.

This is truly a holy war for Abu Theeb. He tells me how once he was driving to Baghdad carrying a sack filled with anti-tank rocket heads for an operation in Baghdad. He was stopped at a checkpoint and American soldiers ordered him to step out and begun a car search. "I prayed to God," he says. "I told him, 'God, if I am doing what I am doing for your sake then spare me this. If it's not, let them get me.' The American soldier opened the boot where I had the sack filled with rocket heads. He moved it aside and started to search. When he finished and asked me to leave, I knew then I was blessed by God."

WHAT BUSH CALLS his enemies’ ideology of hatred has limits he would like us to forget.  Division in our own politics is evident, but Bush simplifies abroad as he does at home.  Reality talks otherwise.

Perhaps inevitably, though, the insurgents turned out not to have the same stomach for Iraqi blood. "Al-Qaida believes that anyone who doesn't follow the Qur'an literally is a Kaffir - apostate - and should be killed," says Abu Theeb. "This is wrong."

BUSH RECENTLY sought to reinvent the domino theory by his invocation of the caliphate, one Muslim rule stretching from Spain to Indonesia. In this he sees a convenient monolithic, apocalyptic enemy that many Muslims want no part of.  The truth is Muslims like everyone else are divided in their views of this the lower political world and would seek more interpretation of what Allah might will.  A caliphate with Shia and Sunni united in Iraq alone would be hard to imagine, much across the waist of the world.

Al-Qaida marked down not only those who cooperated with the American occupation, but everyone who worked with the Iraqi government, police or army, as Kaffirs. Then they said that the entire Shia community were Kaffirs. For Sunnis like Abu Theeb, this was a step too far.

The second serious stumbling block has been al-Qaida's call for the establishment of an Islamic state (caliphate) based on the Taliban model in Afghanistan. This has already started taking place in towns and villages where al-Qaida is dominant. "The resistance now is made up of nationalist and religious elements," says Abu Theeb. "By calling for a caliphate you will alienate not only the resistance but the support we get from Syria and the gulf countries." The last thing these countries want is a Taliban state as a neighbour. 

THE WORLD REMAINS as it is, not as some would wish.  More than good wishes will be needed for peace.

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[Captain Ed] Politics, even with a minority status, gives the Sunnis a way to continue having influence in the new Iraq. Theeb sounds a theme similar to Ecclesiastes when he counsels his fellow Sunnis that the time for violence has passed. Perhaps Theeb might well wind up running for office himself if he successfully transforms the village and surrounding areas into a democratic model.

This is how democratization beats insurgencies, and how it beats terrorism -- it takes the Abu Theebs and turns them into politicians and political organizers, replacing the gun with the ballot.

[Guardian UK] Three Sunni parties announced yesterday they are to form an alliance to fight the Iraqi parliamentary election in December. The decision marks a significant change after many Sunnis boycotted the last election in January.

Sunni participation is a breakthrough for the US and Britain whose diplomats have been trying to persuade them for months to engage in the political process. . . . .

US and British diplomats have been desperate to secure the involvement of a Sunni political group with ties to the insurgents. They hope that this could bring some of the insurgents into the political process and separate Sunni nationalist insurgents from more extreme organisations, such as al-Qaida. None of the three parties has seats in the present interim parliament. Some Sunnis now regard the January boycott as a disaster because it handed political control to the Shias and Kurds and the alliance is partly intended to avoid a repetition in December. In spite of their participation, the shape of the parliament after the election is still expected to be dictated by the two main Shia parties.

The US and Britain hope that the establishment of democracy in Iraq, however shaky, will allow them to begin a phased withdrawal.

But there was a setback when the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group of Sunni clerics, criticised the new constitution, saying it will only "benefit the occupiers and those who collaborate with them".