The best open source analysts on Iraq are Nibras Kazimi of Hudson Institute (and Talisman Gate), and Mohammed and Omar Fadhil of Iraq the Model.  Without planning or warning, from time to time their collective wits and powers of analysis will dovetail, and it’s a wonderful thing to watch as they deconstruct lies and propaganda.

Kazimi recently turned his guns on a New Yorker article which relied on an interview with an alleged sheikh Zaidan al-Awad, and the “sheikh” had this to say:

I asked Zaidan what sort of deal had led to the Sunni Awakening. “It’s not a deal,� he said, bristling. “People have come to realize that our fate is tied to the Americans’, and theirs to ours. If they are successful in Iraq, it will depend on Anbar. We always said this. Time was lost. America was lost, but now it’s woken up; it now holds a thread in its hand. For the first time, they’re doing something right.�

Zaidan said that Anbar’s Sunni tribes no longer had any need to exact blood vengeance on U.S. forces. “We’ve already taken our revenge,� he said. “We’re the ones who’ve made them crawl on their stomachs, and now we’re the ones to pick them up.� He added, “Once Anbar is settled, we must take control of Baghdad, and we will.� There would have to be a lot more fighting before the capital was taken back from the Shiites, he said. “The Anbaris will take charge of the purge. What the whole world failed to do in Anbar, we have done overnight. Baghdad will be a lot easier.�

The sheikh goes on to say how with a little help from the Americans, the Sunni will soon finish off the Shi’a and Iranians.  Replies Kazimi,

Powerful stuff, except that Zaidan al-Awad is misidentified as “a prominent Sunni tribal leader from Anbar.� Zaidan’s elevated social and tribal status was also implied when he was featured by Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey in June 2006. But don’t blame these reporters or their fixer—even gorgeous, elegant and smart Jordanian fixers get it wrong once in a while—for not spotting a tribal charlatan as he makes the media rounds.

According to several knowledgeable sources I’ve spoken to, Zaidan is regarded as nothing more than a buffoon.

Zaidan Khalaf al-Awad is not the tribal chief of the Albu Jaber ‘tribe’, and even if he were, then the Albu Jaber qualify as the least significant of all of Anbar’s 200-plus tribes and clans—as trivial as the low-born Slubba or the Swatreh—since they number around 200 men. Furthermore, Zaidan’s father was a sirkal, or headman responsible for cultivation, for the Ali Al-Suleiman family around the Khaldiyyah area; he’s not of ‘sheikhly’ ancestry …

why not quote the bum on the street who’s been warning us that the ‘End is Near’?

But are these laughable charges of making the Americans “crawl on their stomachs” and “picking them up” in Anbar restricted to buffoons in the Middle East?  The U.S. version of this can be found in a recent Daily Kos posting by Brandon Friedman.

As U.S. casualties have continued to drop, many people on the anti-Bush side of the aisle have begun to quietly panic in recent days over this question: “Could George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan have possibly been right about the surge?”

Simply put, the answer is no.  The surge is not working and George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan were not right.  Despite what right-wing blogs are saying, and despite what conservative observers are noting, the plunge in violence is actually the result of an Iraqi political decision made by and implemented by Iraqis—and the drop has little to do with the “surge”—an infusion of 30,000 troops (which wouldn’t fill a Major League stadium) into Baghdad, a city of six million people.

The “Shiite militants” described by the New York Times were, in fact, members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.  And, as we all saw this past summer, Muqtada’s fighters were really doing a job on American forces—despite the troop increase which began earlier in the year.

Far from “really doing a job” on American forces, the Jaish al Mahdi have run from every engagement with U.S. forces.  But in breaking down the success in Iraq, Friedman makes a fatal and irrecoverable error and thus completely misses the point of the strategy.  The so-called surge of forces went into effect in order to continue and enhance a strategy that was already in place in the Anbar province, i.e., expand this strategy in space and time to the balance of Iraq.  Anbar was won without the surge.  Let’s put it another way.  The surge didn’t win Anbar.  The strategy in Anbar was proof of principle for the specific focus and strategy, and thus caused the surge.  Friedman and the Daily Kos have gotten it exactly backwards.

Mohammed of ITM has a recent analysis that drives home this point.

The formation of a so called political council for Iraqi resistance was met by different reactions from the public and the politicians who are now divided into proponents and opponents. Whereas the Accord Front called for mediation between the council and the government some parties in the UIA see that the council cannot be negotiated with and declared it a continuation of the former regime.

What is important in my opinion regarding this development and aside from whether to negotiate with it or not, is the very announcement of forming this new political entity.

It consists of remnants of the former regime and it had led the violent campaign against the change and now its leaders announce the transformation into a political entity seeking negotiations with the government. This represents an admission of the failure of the insurgency. The statement made was dignified with a triumphant tone but this is not the Baath we know. We never saw the Baath triumphant and seeking negotiations at the same time. The former regime never recognized the idea of negotiations and peaceful settlements and this is exactly what led the country to numerous conflicts with the neighbors or with inside adversaries.

Saddam accepted dialogue and negotiations only after he had met defeat. Power always came first in the ideology of the Baath and the cruelty with which Saddam oppressed his domestic adversaries reminds us that searching for negotiations means that the regime, or those who represent its way of thinking, are incapable of sustaining meaningful resistance.

The call for negotiations reflects the failure of the Baath’s military option. This failure can be attributed to a number of reasons, the most significant of which is the determination of the Iraqi people and American administration to continue the march in spite of the pain involved in doing so. It became evident with time for the “resistance” that for the average Iraqis, going back to totalitarian rule is not an option and that an American pullout is not visible in the horizon.

Brandon Friedman and the other buffoons at the Daily Kos have been duped by the arguments of the buffoons in the Middle East who believe that the Sunni made the Americans crawl on their stomachs, the same Sunnis who will one day take back control of Iraq and then defeat Iran.  The buffoons in the Middle East are amusing — the buffoons at the Kos are pathetic.

The insurgency was defeated for a number of ancillary and contributing reasons, including tribal cooperation, security, money and largesse paid directly to concerned citizens and the sheikhs, and other factors.  But the primary reason that the U.S. forces have succeeded was that they were the stronger horse.  The Iraqis saw this and sided with a winner.