Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive

[Jedburgh]

Anthony Cordesman at CSIS has updated this paper:

Iraq's Evolving Insurgency: The Nature of Attacks and Patterns and Cycles in the Conflict

[Strickland]

In the absence of information or intelligence, commanders and planners must often use a "reasonable man" approach to operations. Given the fact that the US has a prison population of 2.5 million people or roughly 1% of the population, which does not include those on probation or parole; is it not reasonable to assume that Iraq also has 1% of its population living "outside" the rule of law? Using this formula, an Iraqi population of 26 million has 260,000 criminals, passive and active insurgents, and pure-terrorists. Given an alien population of 13 million in the US, or 4% of the population; Iraq would have an alien population of over 1 million of which some undetermined number are foreign fighters.

[Jedburgh]

Given an alien population of 13 million in the US, or 4% of the population; Iraq would have an alien population of over 1 million of which some undetermined number are foreign fighters.

That last bit is an unrealistic comparison. Mirror imaging is never a good way to conduct analysis. The alien population in the US is drawn to our country by the large number of relatively well-paying (in comparison to their native country) menial jobs available to them.

Iraq never had a significant foreign worker population along the lines of Saudi Arabia's TCNs. Not even before its economy began going in the crapper. Iraqi's are actually willing to perform manual labor.

Those foreigners coming to Iraq explicitly to fight the US and the coalition are a relatively unique group - if you wish to make a comparative analysis that may be of use, look at the foreigners that joined the Afghan Muj, the Bosnian Muslims, and the groups operating in Kashmir.

But its more than just a numbers game. Borders and border security, travel routes and support lines, reception support networks, levels of direct/indirect outside state support - Iraq's context is different from the others, and they are useful only as a guide...