And the real tragedy for them was that the US did have a solution, the army & marine corps selected some previous insurgents to become the The Sons of Iraq, and along with the surge they smashed the Sunni insurgency. You had peace in the Sunni triangle. Who knows if the US wouldn't have chosen an asshole like Maliki in the first Place.Smitty-48 wrote:Exactly, the Iraqi Baathists all went over to the Fedayeen, when that ran out of steam, they went over to AQI, when that became IS, they went over to IS, the Sunnis are just trying to survive the knife fight in the phone booth with the Shia and Kurds, they will go with whatever Sunni force is strongest, IS is mostly ex-Baathist Sunnis...
Just like Putin smashed the Chechen insurgency by giving power to one powerful former Chechen insurgent (and his son). You don't put down an insurgency by relying on foreigners who say they are going away at some point. You put down an insurgency by getting former insurgents to be your policemen, be your rulers and that wellcome you permanently.
This is the way you defeat a nasty enemy quickly, actually. Generals Botha and Smuts in British uniform to give a perfect example.
And the guys earlier...fighting the British (if somebody wouldn't know history of the Boer war).
Yep, the British know to handle these things... and likely the US military would too, if it would be in charge. But it isn't.