Assessing Iraq's Sunni Arab Insurgency
How does one assess the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq? The answer is critical to the public debate about the ongoing war and to U.S. strategy. Yet, this task has proven more than challenging to experts within and outside government, for a number of reasons: it is often difficult, if not impossible, to calculate accurately the numerical strength of an insurgency; there are no front lines whose movement could provide an indication of the war’s progress; and military factors are usually less important than political and psychological considerations in deciding the outcome of such conflicts.

Part of the challenge is that the coalition and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) face a composite insurgency whose elements act out of diverse motives. These include former regime members and Iraqi Islamists, foreign jihadists, angry or aggrieved Iraqis, tribal groups, and criminals, who draw considerable strength from political and religious ideologies, tribal notions of honor and revenge, and shared solidarities deeply ingrained in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle.

The motives of these groups include a desire to:
1) resist occupation
2) subvert or overthrow the new Iraqi government
3) establish an Islamic state or caliphate in Iraq.

More fundamentally, the insurgency is about power: who had it, who has it now, and who will have it in the future. Indeed, major elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency seek to regain power—as individuals, as members of the former regime, or as a community.

U.S. officials have estimated that the insurgency consists of perhaps some 3,500 fighters and 12,000–20,000 total members (although the actual figure may well be much higher) and another 1,000 or so foreign jihadists. Much of the public debate about the insurgency has revolved around the credibility of these figures. However, insurgent numbers are only one measure—and not even the most important one—of a complex and incompletely understood phenomenon.

Because insurgencies are complex, dynamic, adaptive systems, an assessment of the Sunni Arab insurgency should examine multiple dimensions over time,including: its operational environment; its structures, processes, and functions; and the degree to which it has penetrated public and private institutions in the Sunni Triangle and won over “hearts and minds” in the Sunni Arab community...