There is always some handwringer around, explaining how everything proposed will never work to solve the problem at hand. They come out of the woodwork trying to rationalize why nothing can be done. They have some crazy idea that thinking of possible negative outcomes makes them truly smart somehow. Negative and positive outcomes are always possible. But if you put energy into a goal you can achieve it. These permanently negative naysayers always forget to add ‘determination’ and ‘effort’ to the equation. So now with violence being reduced through an alliance with local tribal leaders who are attacking al-Qaeda, we find this strange phenomena at work again. Now, instead of building alliances and alienating al-Qaeda we are supposedly < ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin">buying off one side in a civil war:

American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants’ extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war.

We are not funding both sides in a civil war. We are not funding al-Qaeda so we can’t be fudning both sides. al-Qaeda is an outside, Islamo Fascist force. The fact is we are making progress and some yahoos in cushy offices in DC are wringing their hands, trying to find that grey cloud hiding behind the silver lining. The lunacy of this thinking is remarkable in its ignorance regarding the history of war. You would think a think-tank on war would know its history. But clearly they do not.

Was World War II just a European civil war among ethnic and sectarian groups? Well, it could be seen that way if you squinted just right. When we armed and supported French resistance fighters, were we arming one side in a civil war with Germany’s French puppet government? The Nazi Fascists had taken control of much or Europe and we turned to locals everywhere to help us push them back into Germany and Italy. It is how wars are fought.

There are always challenges, even when things work out there are challenges. When we won WW II we ended up in a stand off with Russia and had to implement the Marshall Plan – which really did divide a country and force us to take one side. East-West Germany was as divided as North-South Korea. It took decades to undo the damage from our necessary alliance with Communist Russia. Trust me, it was better to have their help killing Nazis than arming and supporting them.

So too are their challenges in our successes in Iraq. There are some tensions in the tribal allainces which rose up to purge Iraq of al-Qaeda and its brutality.

In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council’s most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a “traitor” who “sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money.”

Abu Risha, who enjoys the support of U.S. military commanders, denied the allegations and said the council is not at risk of breaking apart. “There is no such thing going on,” he said in a telephone interview from Jordan.

Lt. Col. Richard D. Welch, a U.S. military official who works closely with the tribal leaders in Iraq, said that relations inside the group were strained and that he expected a complete overhaul of the coalition in coming days.

The SurrenderMedia marks this down as some kind of irreconcilable differences. But note the one Shiek is upset about money. Who knows, maybe he feels he did not get enough supplies. Maybe he is an ally of al-Qaeda meant to cause trouble. Maybe he is going to quit the alliance or maybe he will stay. The tribal alliance will need to grow into an element of the Iraqi government and there will be growing pains as it does this. There will be arguments and posturing and all the elements of heated debate. As long as al-Qaeda is being killed off and order is returning that is what is important. But as Gen Petraeus said – this is not about money, it’s about life and death

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, has disputed the notion that U.S. forces were buying the loyalty of the tribes, saying that they opposed al-Qaeda in Iraq on ideological grounds and noting that many tribal leaders had been killed by the extremist group.

“I think they’ve done this for their lives,” Petraeus said during a recent briefing on Anbar. “This is not just a business deal they’ve struck. When you oppose al-Qaeda, you are putting it all on the line. This is not an economic issue.”

Is this bad reporting or deliberately biased reporting? Look at the lead in paragraph on the first story I linked to and you decide:

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

The surge is not four months old, it is about a week old. It took four months to get the troops in place to begin the effort. And this is not outside the surge – this is and has been part of the surge strategy BECAUSE it was built on the success Anbar Province has seen over the last 9 months. It was the model upon which the surge was architected. Now that the forces are in place the military has said many times it will take some months to get progress – because outreach takes time to build up trust. Trust enough to arm. And of courese much of this ‘back story’ is buried deep in the article

The strategy of arming Sunni groups was first tested earlier this year in Anbar Province, the desert hinterland west of Baghdad, and attacks on American troops plunged after tribal sheiks, angered by Qaeda strikes that killed large numbers of Sunni civilians, recruited thousands of men to join government security forces and the tribal police. With Qaeda groups quitting the province for Sunni havens elsewhere, Anbar has lost its long-held reputation as the most dangerous place in Iraq for American troops.

Now, the Americans are testing the “Anbar model” across wide areas of Sunni-dominated Iraq. The areas include parts of Baghdad, notably the Sunni stronghold of Amiriya, a district that flanks the highway leading to Baghdad’s international airport; the area south of the capital in Babil province known as the Triangle of Death, site of an ambush in which four American soldiers were killed last month and three others abducted, one of whose bodies was found in the Euphrates; Diyala Province north and east of Baghdad, an area of lush palm groves and orchards which has replaced Anbar as Al Qaeda’s main sanctuary in Iraq; and Salahuddin Province, also north of Baghdad, the home area of Saddam Hussein.

Yet somehow the lead in is how this is new to the surge? These facts are reported in hundreds of stories. Yet somehow the NY Times, an opponent of the war, screwed up their lead in paragraph completely. I personally do not think this was a mistake, but a blatant effort to mislead. I have no proof. All I know is it would take a monumental sequence of coincidences for he NY Times to be so out of touch on a story they are obsessed with. They spin, you get brainwashed.

Don’t listen to the handwringers. They have no control of events on the ground. Mainly because handwringers are always on the sidelines – they never act. They have convinced themselves there is no reason to.