Mick Hartley

A surprisingly upbeat account by Fouad Ajami of recent interviews with some of Iraq’s new leaders, including Sheikh Abu Reisha, assassinated by al Qaeda last week:

Abu Reisha and a small group of like-minded men, he said, came together to challenge al Qaeda. “We fought with our own weapons. I myself fought al Qaeda with my own funds. The Americans were slow to understand our sahwa, our awakening. But they have come around of late. The Americans are innocent; they don’t know Iraq. But all this is in the past, and now the Americans have a wise and able military commander on the scene, and the people of the Anbar have found their way. In the Anbar, they now know that the menace comes from Iran, not from the Americans.”

Abu Reisha spoke of the guile of the Iranians: They have schemes over the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, he said. He said the Anbar was in need of money, that its infrastructure was shattered. He welcomed a grant of $70 million given the Anbar by the government, and was sure that more was on the way.

An Iraqi in the know, unsentimental about his country’s ways, sought to play down the cult of Abu Reisha. American soldiers, he said, won the war for the Anbar, but it was better to put an Iraq kafiyyah than an American helmet on the victory. He dismissed Abu Reisha. He was useful, he said, but should not be romanticized. “No doubt he was shooting at Americans not so long ago, but the tide has turned, and Abu Reisha knew how to reach an accommodation with the real order of power. The truth is that the Sunnis launched this war four years ago, and have been defeated. The tribes never win wars, they only join the winners.”

Also featured, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and Vice Presidents Adel Abdul Mahdi and the Sunni Tariq Hashemi. Well worth a read for an appreciation of how much things in Iraq have changed recently.

From Maliki:

The historical dilemma of his country was there for everyone to see: “For the Kurds, this is the time of taking, for the Shiite, this is the time of restitution, for the Sunnis this is the time of loss. But ours is one country, and it will have to be shared.”