Lots of folks have discussed the open rift – and outright war in some places – between the Sunni insurgency and Al Qaeda in Iraq. The general narrative is that AQI was so brutal and indiscriminate in killing fellow Sunnis that Sunni tribesmen decided to band together under the new Anbar Salvation Council and drive Al Qaeda from the West of Iraq. Recently the fighting has exploded in Baghdad itself. The Administration’s read on this is that US participation is necessary to bolster the Sunni tribesmen against AQI. This is all good news, so Petraeus argues. Others see it as evidence that US participation is useless – even counterproductive – in the fight against Al Qaeda, since the Sunnis seem to have come to this position by themselves. Nobody on either side of the divide knows if the conflict between AQI and insurgents is just temporary or if it signifies the beginnings of an engagement with the central Iraqi government.
But today comes a story that AQI and the largest Sunni insurgent group – the Islamic Army of Iraq – have agreed on a truce so that leaders among both groups can develop mutually satisfying tactics. There’s no word on how effective or widespread this truce will be. But it seems quite a stunning turn away from the last six months, where insurgents and AQI were at loggerheads. And unless this is actually a total capitulation of AQI, it doesn’t strike me that a new pledge of unity between AQI and the larger Sunni insurgency is a good thing for the creation of a multisectarian Iraq.