Alaverdi, Northern Armenia Here is another brilliant piece from the Conflicts Forum website on a mysterious effort from the English-speaking world to reinforce support for President Abbas in the Palestinian Territory which will have the opposite effect. If you don't have time to read it, the analysis in the final paragraph - reproduced below - neatly sums up the problem that dogs the current administration in the United States - and did so most acutely in their backing of the beleaguered Lebanese government recently.
"An American conviction that success — whether in business or politics — is always commensurate with purchasing power, never seems to be dampened by evidence to the contrary. In this case, the underlying assumption is that in throwing its weight behind Abbas and Fatah, the U.S. will ensure their success and hasten Hamas’ failure. What is ignored in this is America’s reverse-Midas touch. U.S. interference will only diminish the power, credibility, and legitimacy of its favored partner — in the process, the whole Palestinian Authority may collapse. In that event, Israel’s heavy military hand will push down even harder only to be met with renewed and determined resistance from the Palestinians. The result may well be that the Action Plan designed to shift power in accordance with Washington’s predilections, will instead turn out to be a clarion call for the next intifada."
Exactly.
A report the other day claiming that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, had been killed by rivals, suggested tensions between Al Qaeda and homegrown Sunni insurgents. Also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, Al-Masri (which simply means 'the Egyptian') declared an Islamic State of Iraq in the west of the country early this year. This article and this one from Conflicts Forum provide more interesting detail on the split between the Sunni groups inside Iraq.
Even if the report is accurate, it does not give much cause for celebration. The insurgents say that their differences have not undermined their determination to expel foreign forces from the country, and in any case, the extent to which some sort of central Al Qaeda operation really determines the insurgents' strategy inside Iraq was questioned by the publication of this letter to a previous Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, late in 2005. Rather, it seems the Al Qaeda banner is one adopted locally by a particular insurgent faction to give itself greater credibility.
