As background, recall not too many months ago that U.S. forces rolled out a plan to split off the indigenous insurgents from al Qaeda, Ansar al Sunna, former Ba’athists and Fedayeen Saddam.  We offered to pay them for services rendered, these services specifically being the provision of security for neighborhoods and intelligence gathering.  Basically, we co-opted their services.

The Captain’s Journal strongly supported this move, initially called the concerned citizens, but we knew at the time that nothing was cast in stone.  Nothing was irreversible, and the progress was tentative.  The Iraqi government had to reconcile and incorporate them into the system, and this was pointed out to us by contacts from field grade officers in Iraq at the time.  The warnings from these contacts were rather dire.  We knew the risks, but supported the program anyway as the best and wisest approach to counterinsurgency at the time and in this situation.

Now comes a report from the LA Times that hints at a potential re-emergence of the Sons of Iraq as insurgents, entitled The rise and fall of a sons of Iraq warrior.

Abu Abed in his Amman apartment holds a picture of him and General David Petraeus from last year when the Sunni fighter was celebrated for leading a then unthinkable revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq in Baghdad.  Photo courtesy of the LA Times, Ned Parker

A year ago, Sunni Arab fighter Abu Abed led an improbable revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq. As he killed its leaders and burned down hide-outs, he became a symbol of a new group called the Sons of Iraq — the man who dared to stand up to the extremists in Baghdad when it still ranked as a suicidal act.

Today, Abu Abed is chain-smoking cigarettes in Amman, betrayed by his best friend, on the run from a murder investigation in his homeland. He once walked the streets of Baghdad wearing wraparound sunglasses and surrounded by a posse of men in matching fatigues like something out of “Reservoir Dogs,” but now he shouts futilely for speeding taxis to halt, a slight figure in jeans and a button-down short-sleeve shirt.

Abu Abed’s rise and fall encapsulates the complexities of the U.S.-funded Sons of Iraq program. Although the Shiite-led Iraqi government has regarded the Sons of Iraq as little more than a front for insurgent groups, the Sunni fighters’ war helped end the cycle of car bombings and reprisal killings by Shiite militias that had sent Baghdad headlong into civil war. America’s new friends also helped bring down the death rate of U.S. forces in Iraq.

The Defense Department’s report to Congress last week emphasized the vital nature of the program, saying, “The emergence of the Sons of Iraq to help secure local communities has been one of the most significant developments in the past 18 months in Iraq.”

Abu Abed’s flight into exile shines a light on a violent power struggle pitting upstart leaders like him against Iraq’s entrenched Sunni political elite and its Shiite-dominated government. The frictions could easily shatter the Sons of Iraq — and open the door to Al Qaeda in Iraq’s resurgence.

In the cramped Amman apartment he shares with his family, Abu Abed opens a folder with pictures of him and American officials — Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and others. He holds up the medals they awarded him, the letters commending him.

But his eyes glaze over at a photo of Iraqi officials from a reconciliation conference he attended in mid-June. “They pat you on the back with one hand and stab you with the other,” he says bitingly.

Abu Abed doesn’t reveal his identity to people in Amman. He tells them he sells cars. His skin is grayer and his cheeks, once plump, are noticeably gaunt. The family has already moved once, after his 8-year-old son was handed a threatening letter at school.

He worries that his fate will serve as a warning to others who gambled their lives fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. “Al Qaeda will come back and the government and Iraqi army will be helpless to defeat them. People will have lost their faith in the government because of the way they treated me and others.”

The government considers Abu Abed a former militant with blood on his hands.

“If he has done something, let the legal system take its course. It is not just with Abu Abed, but all the people,” said Tahseen Sheikhly, an Iraqi government spokesman for Baghdad military operations. “They were part of the major problem of violence in Iraq.”

Abu Abed’s defenders, including some U.S. military officers, suggest that the fighter earned enemies for upsetting Baghdad’s status quo as he brought former insurgents into an alliance with the Americans.

In recent months, Abu Abed had been organizing like-minded fighters around Baghdad and northern Iraq for provincial elections in the fall. U.S. officers believe his transition to politics could have proved the last straw for the government.

“Certainly you can draw the conclusion because he was getting involved in the political process to engage Sons of Iraq leaders to form a political party, the Iraqi government actively targeted him,” said a U.S. military officer, who declined to give his name because of the subject’s sensitivity. “I don’t know that I can say it outright, but it certainly does seem that way.”

Amid the political skirmishing, the committee set up to integrate U.S.-backed Sunni fighters into the security forces and public works jobs has stalled.

We always knew that reconciliation would be necessary for the real gains to obtain.  Maliki has a once in a generation opportunity to bring peace to Iraq.  He demands that his people reconcile, but refuses to entertain the idea himself, perhaps beholden to Iranian influence.  If he continues this path, he might very well plunge Iraq into civil war upon the eventual departure of U.S. forces.

If this happens, nothing – including Maliki and the ISF – will be able to stop it.  The Sunnis may make up only 15% of the population, but aligned with al Qaeda would become as formidable as they were before.  Maliki will sit at the top of a crumbling government and nation-state.  Thus he will have proven himself to be the ultimate fool.  This is not inevitable, but probable if his administration doesn’t ensure that all parties are properly incorporated into the government.  The U.S. will have no leverage with the Sunnis next time if Maliki’s administration doesn’t produce.  Our wallet has been shot on this one chance.