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Sunni tribal leader who met with Bush is dead

The BBC is reporting that Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the putative leader of Anbar Awakening, “was killed in a bomb attack near his home in Iraq’s western Anbar province.” Perhaps needless to say, this is a setback for ye olde surge. Marc Lynch comments: Even if Abu Risha was a poor choice to “lead” the ...

By Blake Hounshell

September 13, 2007, 5:37 PM

The BBC is reporting that Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the putative leader of Anbar Awakening, "was killed in a bomb attack near his home in Iraq's western Anbar province." Perhaps needless to say, this is a setback for ye olde surge.

The BBC is reporting that Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the putative leader of Anbar Awakening, “was killed in a bomb attack near his home in Iraq’s western Anbar province.” Perhaps needless to say, this is a setback for ye olde surge.

Marc Lynch comments:

Even if Abu Risha was a poor choice to “lead” the strategy, he was in fact elevated to that symbolic position by American propaganda and practice (that meeting with the President, for instance). His murder demonstrates that even America’s closest friends are not untouchable – not even on the day of a Presidential address expected to rely heavily on progress in Anbar. The political fallout of the murder inside of Iraq may well exceed Abu Risha’s actual role in Sunni politics.

Reacting to the news, Gen. Petraeus told the Washington Post, “I think that the tribes will pull together and go after whoever did this,” adding that Abu Risha had been “an important unity figure” in Anbar’s Sunni Arab community.

That may be true to some extent, but it’s important to remember that there are still major splits among the Anbar tribes. Even Saddam had a tough time keeping everyone in line, and he used a “divide and rule” strategy incorporating money, guns, and special privileges to promote cooperative tribes over uncooperative ones. At a gross level, the U.S. military has been mimicking Saddam’s approach, hoping the balance of power tilts in favor of the good guys. Still, major parts of the Dulaim tribal confederation—the largest such grouping in Anbar—oppose working with the coalition and/or actively support al Qaeda in Iraq. As Lynch puts it,

The major nationalist insurgency groups had recently issued a series of statements denouncing people who would illegitimately seize the fruits of their victorious jihad – of whom [Abu Risha] was the prime example. All those photographs which swamped the Arab media showing him shaking hands with President Bush made him even more a marked man than before.

Much has been made of Shiite infighting in Karbala, Basra, and other parts of the south of Iraq, but what’s happening in Anbar is similar in many ways. And as we’ve seen today, the enemy gets a vote.