Over at the Washington Independent, reporter Spencer Ackerman has been writing, among other things, a series on counterinsurgency. Today he takes a particularly interesting approach to the subject, writing about how the rise of Shia Islamist leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq has been largely due to Sadrists adopting the type of approach lauded by counterinsurgency doctrine. The thing about counterinsurgency is that it's really just a military way of saying that *somebody* has to provide government-type services -- security, education, health, economic, etc -- and in times of conflict, whichever group can do that tends to gain legitimacy and support. In Iraq, several parties have tried to do this with varying success, and Sadr has been among the most effective. As Ackerman explains,
The principles of counterinsurgency are diverse, but they could be summed up as methods of warfare used to draw a civilian population's political and personal allegiance away from a guerrilla force. A counterinsurgent force seeks to coordinate military and civilian methods to offer both material and ideological incentives to a population so it will support a government and reject that government's enemies.
Currently, the U.S. military and its civilian associates have launched a "population protection" strategy to defend Baghdad residents against sectarian and criminal gangs; to promote competent and responsible governance at the provincial as well as national levels; to jump start commerce; and to provide social services like education health care and sanitation. But in the areas under his control, Sadr provides all these things -- and does so better than the Iraqi government.
And rather than recognize these facts as they are, the US seems to vacillate between condescending to Sadrists in an attempt to placate them and openly trying to eradicate the group. We underestimate the power of popular movements to our own peril, and while I find many of Sadr's beliefs and goals extraordinarily distasteful, he's not leaving the picture anytime soon.
