"Going to War with the Army You Have"

The Latest American Theory about the Iraqi Resistance

In early February, a Newsweek team led by Rod Nordland produced a detailed account of current theorizing among American and Iraqi officials about the structure of the Iraqi resistance.

Here, in brief, is what these officials told Newsweek: The initial American assault on Iraq was so successful that Saddam Hussein's plan for systematic resistance fell apart almost immediately, leaving a dispersed, unruly guerrilla movement with little or no coherent leadership. In the two subsequent years, however, the Saddamists formed a wealthy and savvy leadership group in Syria. In the meantime Abu Massab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist with ties to al Qaeda, asserted his domination over the on-the-ground resistance. Pressure from recent American offensives drove the two groupings into an increasingly comfortable alliance. Here is how Newsweek described developments since last summer, based on an interview with Barham Salih, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister:

According to Salih, ‘The Baathists regrouped and, in the last six or seven months, reorganized. Plus they had significant amounts of money, in Iraq and in Syria.' Those contacts and networks that Saddam's key cronies began developing months before the invasion now paid off. An understanding was found with the Islamic fanatics, and the well-funded Baathists appear to have made Syria a protected base of operations. ‘The Iraqi resistance is a monster with its head in Syria and its body in Iraq' is the colorful description given by a top Iraqi police official ... . Zarqawi's people supply the bombers, the Baathists provide the money and strategy.

The current situation was succinctly summarized for Newsweek by Brig. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, the Deputy Minister of the Interior: "Now between the Zarqawi group and the Baathists there is full cooperation and coordination."

This portrait has been further fleshed out in other accounts, including a New York Times report in which U.S. Commanding Gen. George W. Casey declared that the Baath Party in Syria was "providing direction and financing for the insurgency in Iraq."

This new theory about the nature of the Iraqi resistance helps to illuminate the renewed saber-rattling against the Syrians, which began even before the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister. On Jan. 25, for example, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, writing together for the first time, made the connection explicit in a Washington Post op-ed. They asserted that the Bush administration must have a "strategy for eliminating the sanctuaries in Syria and Iran from which the enemy can be instructed, supplied, and given refuge in time to regroup." The new theory may also help to explain why (according to such diverse sources as Newsweek and former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter) the U.S. is considering using assassination squads to eliminate enemies. One whole category of targets for these squads (if formed) would certainly be the Syrian-based leadership of the resistance.

And then, at the end of February, came news of the first fruits of American operations based on this new insight, the capture in Syria of Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, a half brother and political lieutenant of Saddam, and one of only 11 of the original "deck of cards" Saddamist leaders who still remained at large. The capture vindicated the saber-rattling as well, since high level Iraqi officials told reporters on Feb. 28 that the "capture was a goodwill gesture by the Syrians to show that they are cooperating" with the new American campaign to decapitate the insurgency by removing its Syrian-based leadership.

The New Theory Is Probably Not Accurate

This new portrait of the Iraqi resistance may be an accurate description of one aspect of the ongoing war; and its key new element – a working alliance between Saddamist exiles and Zarqawi's fighters inside Iraq – may be an important new development. But the foundation upon which these descriptions are built – that these forces now dominate the resistance, supply its leadership, or provide the bulk of its resources – is likely to prove profoundly inaccurate.