Robert---you are on to something that has gone under the last 12 or so years---what really causes a resistance insurgency and why does the population react the way it does---yes Mao and Co. help but with religion and ideologies---both have to be looked at intensively.
Kilcullen stated out with his ecosystem approach but then shifted gears when the blogs, think tanks, and others had no idea on how to use it. It is still a point to start with when discussing the development of a resistance insurgency
What I find amazing about the ME especially the Sunni/Shia divide is how the "isms" have played a major role in their fundamentalist developments and how both fed off of each other the last 20 years or so.
We talk about Arab nationalism being a factor but what we do not talk about is the deep impression made by Communism/Marxism on the various Sunni and Shia thinkers in the 60/70s and early 80s---if one does not think there was any influence---check what Khomeini ordered when the communists/leftists were removed first from the universities and then out of government---they were either killed, imprisoned and then killed or driven out of the country. We played a role as well in the killing of thousands of Iranian communists when the CIA was alleged to have passed lists containing their names knowing what the Revolutionary guards would do with the information---and we wonder why the US embassy was bombed by as was rumored shortly after the attack that it was a pay back from the KGB. This attack often does not get discussed as does the Marine bombing.
We have had our internal politics so colored by the Cold War "fight" against Communism that we forgot and or cannot now discuss in a honest fashion just what the role of the various ME Communist parties was in the development of the ME---virtually every modern Sunni/Shia thinker of the 60/70s who was fighting for self determination ie nationalism ended up in prison where they met sometimes for the first time Arab communists---and during their prison exchanges learned things like organization, living underground and population messaging at the same time learning of the similarities between the "religion of Islam" and the "ideology" of Communism/Marxism. In fact a number of ME leading communists were being jailed/killed for their political activities long before Sunnis/Shia got into the self determination fight.
Even some of Khomeini's early writings and speeches reflected communist thinking wrapped in Shiaism.
Why is it that still today we in the US have an extremely hard time discussing Communism in an open dialogue without people taking sides and threatening each other with bodily harm politically speaking of course.
To understand the ME is to understand the role of Communism in the development of Sunni/Shia fundamentalism.
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