brinktk
Active member
But surely the idea that the insurgency had recognised that from 2010 onwards that the US withdrawal was almost complete so further sacrifice was futile as such the "hurting insurgents" were in fact just the dead enders who were determined to kill as many as they could before being killed is not unrealistic.
After all the Syrian revolution broke out around that time so perhaps the insurgents simply shifted their focus to an easier target while they waited for you to leave Iraq.
That's not what the intelligence I read suggested...now I know that there is certainly room for error...but when jaysh al Mahdi, al queda in Iraq, and JRTN are working together because they don't have the resources or capability to do it on their own...it shows that most of the VEN groups were hurting across the board. If you know anything about those groups specifically, you'd know they could not work together ideologically unless they had no other choice.
The Syrian revolution argument might hold some water, except that the movement didn't radicalize until well after the US withdrawal from Iraq. I actually think many of the groups that were hurting in Iraq were able to rejuvenate in the chaos and target rich environment that the Syrian revolution provided. Notice, the chaos in Iraq didn't start to pick up until there was Sunni rebel successes in on a large scale in Syria. Although not definitive...certainly worth noting.
Also, the armed forces agreement that was made in 2009 was supposed to be extended past the 2012 deadline. The Maliki government sat on it until October 2011 after a huge portion of coalition forces had already pulled out. Had it been renewed by July, which was when Obama told him to make sure he did it by, the 50,000 soldiers who were still in the country would have remained indefinitely. My orders going there even put me in Iraq until May of 2012 in anticipation of the extension of that agreement. It didn't happen. So if we weren't even sure, the ISF certainly wasn't and the insurgents most definitely didn't know. How could they kick back and wait for the unknown?
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