In Somalia for instance there are Al Qaeda affiliated groups that are major combat players, and the same in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Those are the only places (and to an extent Iraq) where Al Qaeda groups are hitting the street every day with arms and specific missions. They do terrorist attacks to further their combat/political adjectives, but they don't sit around planning for months. And those are the types that we supposedly have to stay or else they'll stake over. Although you make a good point that a lot of the “affiliates” are often times tribes that have their allegiance committed wholesale. That and “criminals” who are recruited.

In Somalia for instance there are Al Qaeda affiliated groups that are major combat players, and the same in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Those are the only places (and to an extent Iraq) where Al Qaeda groups are hitting the street every day with arms and specific missions. They do terrorist attacks to further their combat/political adjectives, but they don't sit around planning for months. And those are the types that we supposedly have to stay or else they'll stake over. Although you make a good point that a lot of the “affiliates” are often times tribes that have their allegiance committed wholesale. That and “criminals” who are recruited.

I still disagree about he foot soldiers: Syrians in Gaza. and Jordan, etc.,multi-national .splinter groups in London, Lybians all over the place.
You are correct in that I should be more precise when i refer to alQaeda. I just don't know what term should be used for these traveling malcontents. They could attach themselves to alQaeda here and to something else there.

As to Iraq, you are describing, correctly, the situation as it is at this moment. The thing about Iraq and the ME, though, is that any moment is in danger of lasting only a moment. Sunni cohesion against alQaeda is paid for by the US, and that's a nebulous thing to depend on.

When allegience is tribal, it can shift quickly according to changing circumstances. The tribes in Pakistan make and break deals left and right. The Taliban there (local) gets along pretty well with alQaeda (foreign), for example..

One thing that makes iraq and its tribes unstable is the unresolved sectarian conflict. Iraqis are caught beteen irreconcilable urges: a) to maintian an iraqi identity and b) to serve the interests of their tribes and reliigious factions.

It will be a long time before all that gets sorted out, and I think it would be dangerous to rest on the laurels of any one moment or to predict the future from an accidental occurence (the confluence of the surge and its new tactics with Sunni revulsion at alQaeda Iraq).

They're a target the moment we begin to leave, sadly.

Anathema to the anti-war-and-US-success crowd, and I hope it doesn't fall prey to the “revolution in military affairs plus war on the cheap” view that Rumsfeld had. I hope the troops taken out of Iraq are redeployed to Afghanistan (or rotated first back here for a break) to be used against targets not only in Afghanistan but in the frontier zone of Pakistan as needed.

“… as careful leaving Iraq as we were careless in entering Iraq”: Actually, the true entry, the war, went off fine; it has been the occupation that has been screwed up so badly. It's something of a cheap shot but the meaning is good and I bet it hit home.

I disagree. The “officers” might go where the action is, but if you look at most of the people doing the fighting they are either locals or from the immediately surrounding countries. That's kind of how the whole structure is supposed to work, where leaders are dispersed and build up local apparatuses. For Al Qaeda in Iraq there was one point where the vast majority of members were Iraqi, even though all the leaders were foreigners. Then as they fell out of favor and the allied Sunni groups broke away they were forced to import foreigners as fighters, which enabled the Iraqis to clearly identify them.

I don't think it's just semantics either as it suggests two things: one, that in order to diminish the Al Qaeda influence you should focus on local issues and two, that in order to stop the spread there are a relatively small number of people that should be targeted rather than worrying about mass arrests.

First the Dems, including Obama, is accused of wanting to surrender Iraq – anyone remember “Surrender Monkys?”, now they are being accused for wanting a sane exit from Iraq with some troops left behind. Next they'll complain that his plan isn't “detailed” enough meanwhile not detailing their own plan either.

I'm with Runasim, Obama's pragmatic approach to Iraq and many other issues seems the best move.

In essence I'm saying that to view an Al Qaeda affiliated group anywhere in the world as just “moving around” isn't very accurate as a lot of times the people are completely different with different localized aims. The central command just trains and funds the local groups to run their own semi-independent structure.

The problem with alQaeda, whether in Iraq, or Afghanitan/Pakistan is that it moves around. Chased out of Iraq , it moved to the tribal regions of Pakistan and is likely to make a reverse migration if NATO is successful in the latter. That tnedency to migrate to the weakest spot is how it landed in Iraq in the first place.

We held a funeral for the Taliban much too early and we are doing the same now for alQaeda in Iraq. Having a strike force on the spot makes perfect sense in fast changing circumstances.

I don't care how many times Obama ajdusts, refines or remains opaque on details, as long as he is flexible enough to react to changes while keeping his main goal of leaving Iraq firmly in place as his main goal.

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Thanks for the post.

I think originally he said around 10-20k troops. Their main job would be to protect the embassy and do training of forces. Notice all the qualifiers in that sentence: “remnants” and “so long as…” In a way it sounds like the main purpose is to just have the option to keep them there if he wants (and say he always supported it) or take them out and say that his conditions for them being there aren't being met. It seems pretty smart politically speaking, and perhaps tactically as well. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense now to want to keep them there.