I just finished reading "The Terrorists of Iraq" by Malcolm Nance, who I believe is also Abu Buckwheat. It was informative and the central arguement of the book, that Former Regime Loyalists (FRLs) are the majority (80-83%) and driving force of the insurgency with Iraqi Islamic Extremists (15-17%) and AQI (2-5%) making up the rest, was very convincing.

With this and the recent "tribal revolt" phenomena some questions were raised in my mind.

These revolts are all described as being against AQI, which I will take to mean AQI and the Iraqi Islamic Extremists.

And, taking Ramadi as an example (I am depending here on Cavguy's long post about the events there), these "revolts" have involved hard fighting. The severity of the fighting seems to indicate that perhaps more than 20% of the insurgency is being revolted against. Again using Ramadi as an example, once the "revolt" succeeds, the insurgency mostly stops.

Considering these things, here are my questions:

1. Did AQI and the Iraqi Islamic Extremists grow in power to the extent they
displaced the FRLs as the driving force in the insurgency?

2. Are the "tribal revolts" against more than AQI, are they also against
parts of the FRL insurgency?

3. Are the FRLs still the relatively cohesive group Malcolm describes in his
book?

4. Have the FRLs, or some of them, given up pursuing the insurgency? If so, for how long and why?

I am not trying to express a back door opinion here. The only thing I know from personal experience about Iraq is how long some of the runways are. These questions truly puzzle me.