The Struggle for the Future of Islam: One Tribe, One Bullet at a Time

I had just been writing about the Pandora's box that threatens to rewrite the long-term struggle inside Islam to one based predominantly on Sunni vs. Shi'a politics (also just writing about COP Falcon in Ramadi).

While we ogle potential changes in the conceptual landscape, we know also know that the daily epiphanies in almost any struggle come down to individuals who will write History with the success or failure of their moral conviction in action.

Accordingly, I point out this post from the guys at the Fourth Rail (where else?), who have this to observe:

The U.S. now estimated 12 of the 21 tribes in Ramadi actively support the government, 6 are neutral and three have sided with al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda has fired back with a vicious campaign of suicide attacks, murders and kidnappings of tribal leaders in an attempt to intimidate the Anbar tribes. Last year, a captured document showed al-Qaeda's 'hit list' of Sunni politicians, tribal leaders, clerics and Baathists in Anbar.

If you read the rest of the post, you get a long list of complaints of what al-qaeda hath wrought in al-Anbar.

Coupled with the Mecca Declaration, perhaps some of the animus of 'fighting occupation' might abate. The question is will it be enough or will enough people continue to struggle without their ideological 'cover story', as it were.

It is also a question of timing, perhaps. The Shi'a led unity government might come up with yet another display of unbelievable incompetence, which would provide another "rationale" and provocation to supplant the old one(s)...