Forward: This peice is being written for an Insurgency Counter Insurgency Class at American University.
I have spent a full semester doing group projects and analysis on the current situation in Iraq, this work often searched for any glimmer of what could be called an American victory, a true victory not just a strategic move in a larger overall victory for the whole of a situation in a country. My feelows seemed to desire to define the conflict into individual battles which could be codified as won or lost. I think it is this need to see things as won or lost that brings us as american to the discussion of the Anbar Awakening Council.

The Awakening Council to be best described can be seen as a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The tribal systems from which they have sprung and there presence outside the established power structure of the Iraqi government leads to them being at best a slippery topic. They are in many ways a jarring case, not being part of the government structure we have fought so hard to define and to develop, offering instead an alternative power system, negating the government monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

The power point of the American involvement with them was that we could, by legitimizing them, negate and cancel there alliance with insurgent forces, bringing them to are side and allowing for victories in the perceived battle for an-bar province. But from the perspective of seeing the whole conflict in Iraq as one battle, we may have actually made a misstep, by legitimizing them, we negate to some extent the power of the Iraqi government, a power we have fought so hard to build.

The only way that we can perceive involvement with the Awakening council as being constructive to the Legitimacy of the Iraqi government in its ability to negate the insurgency.

However, maybe as a side note, if you were to veiw the Awakening Council from the perspective of freinds close and Enemys closer, by dragging them into an alliance with us, learning there force structure and baseing, as well as negating any ability that they have to make comments about the evil american invader (because everyone else has been watching them be in bed with us for the last however long) and yet at the same time providing them military support, (proving there inability to operate seperate from us) oh and by forming them in our reflection (in a way that completely apposes the teachings of Fanon) A.K.A making them act like us instead of like Iraqis, we may have actually managed to seperate the Awakening Council from the deep concetions in had with the communities it was drawen from. This may negate the diffrences from the Iraqi goverment and Military that had made them so appealing for so long to there local communites........ Maybe by keeping our freinds close and are enemies closer, we might just be able to destroy are enemies with are kindness....