The Anbar Awakening Simplified

The Anbar Awakening is the term used to describe the fact that Sunni tribesmen in Iraq's Al Anbar province have turned against Al Qaeda and are accepting help from the American military to drive Al Qaeda out of the province. Conservative bloggers point to this fact with orgasmic glee as proof the Surge is working. So, what is this Awakening?

Simply put, the US Army have out-bid Al Qaeda for the services of the Sunni tribal fighters. Al Qaeda had provided employment and protection from Shiite militias and with its usual ham-fisted approach made themselves unwelcome as well. When the US Army offered better pay, better guns, and better training the tribesmen accepted. The American's goal was short-term, convince the Anbar Sunni tribesmen to stop shooting at US soldiers and start shooting Al Qaeda's Saudi fighters. The Anbar Sunni tribesmen's goal was unchanged, build fighting forces capable of defending their families from Iraqi Shiite militiamen and the Shiite/Kurdish Iraqi army.

The long-term American goal depended on the Iraqi government embracing the Sunni tribal fighters as allies. That is not happening. Indeed, this short-term success has simply created a False Spring. The Mahdi Army, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, has not disappeared. They are playing a guerrilla strategy of laying low while the US Army surges, knowing the surge cannot be maintained and a wiser time to fight lay in the future.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Anbar Awakening shows the short-term success of the Surge while also illustrating that it will probably, eventually, fail. When the Surge ends, as it must, the United States will find itself exactly where it was a year ago - between two factions in civil war with insufficient troops to keep the factions from tearing the country apart. The presence, or absence, of Al Qaeda from the equation was never a serious factor.

Congressional Research Service report on Iraq and Al Qaeda (pdf) (Not so much a source as a resource)

P.S. - My sinuses appear to be recovering. The ability to breath through one's nose is a vastly underestimated skill.