Only a U.S. Withdrawal Will Stop Al Qaeda in Iraq

Last week, I wrote about a quote by Seymour Hersch that said...

The fuel that keeps the war going is us.

Then yesterday, I found this article written by Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland called Only a U.S. Withdrawal Will Stop Al Qaeda in Iraq.

One of the last justifications for continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq despite overwhelming opposition from Iraqis, Americans and the rest of humanity has come down to this: U.S. forces must remain in order to battle "al Qaeda in Iraq."

Like so many of the arguments presented in the United States, the idea is not only intellectually bankrupt, it's also the 180-degree opposite of reality. The truth of the matter is that only the presence of U.S. forces allows the group called "al Qaeda in Iraq" (AQI) to survive and function, and setting a timetable for the occupation to end is the best way to beat them. You won't hear that perspective in Washington, but according to Iraqis with whom we spoke, it is the conventional wisdom in much of the country.

The Bush administration has made much of what it calls "progress" in the Sunni-dominated provinces of central Iraq. But when we spoke to leaders there, the message we got was very different from what supporters of a long-term occupation claim: Many Sunnis are, indeed, lined up against groups like AQI, but that doesn't mean they are "joining" with coalition forces or throwing their support behind the Iraqi government.

Several sources we reached in the Sunni community agreed that AQI, a predominantly Sunni insurgent group that did not exist prior to the U.S. invasion -- it started in 2005 -- will not exist for long after coalition forces depart. AQI is universally detested by large majorities of Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian backgrounds because of its fundamentalist interpretation of religious law and efforts to set up a separate Sunni state, and its only support -- and it obviously does enjoy some support -- is based solely on its opposition to the deeply unpopular U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

And they sum it up by saying...

One of the central tenets of counter-insurgency is that a small group of active fighters can be a powerful force of opposition, but only if they have at least the passive support of the populace. The second the United States commits to a complete withdrawal of its forces, Al Qaeda in Iraq will become a pariah organization and its members will be killed, if they're lucky, or captured if they're not.

The only Presidential candidates that seem to completely understand this is Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich. I remember hearing Joe Biden touch on some aspects of this, but was unable to find any references to it.

By answering at the last debate in New Hampshire that they are uncertain if we will have troops out of Iraq by 2013, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards fail to see this.