The Anbar Awakening, which emerged in 2006 was a mix of
sheikhs, clerics, and tribesmen, many of which were involved with the
insurgency. Each was driven by their own motivation to give up the struggle
against the Americans and the Iraqi government, and instead turn their weapons
on their former compatriots. Sheikh Abdullah Jalal Mukhif Faraji was one such
individual. He was the deputy head of the Sunni Endowment in Anbar, and a
member of the Ramadi city council that later helped lead the Anbar Salvation
Council along with Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha and others. To Faraji it was
the extremism of Al Qaeda in Iraq that led to the formation of the Awakening,
which later became a political force in Anbar.
Sheikh Faraji noted some early mistakes by the Americans,
which allowed for the insurgency to begin in Anbar. One was leaving the border unattended after the invasion, which let foreign fighters flow into Iraq.
The other was the Coalition Provisional Authority’s decision to disband the
military in May 2003. The third was the heavy-handed military tactics used by
the Americans that did not distinguish between the militants and regular Iraqis.
That turned many people against the occupation. To Faraji, Al Qaeda and other
outsiders came to fight the Americans, and unfortunately Iraq was their
battlefield. The people in Anbar were the victims, as they had to suffer
through the indiscriminate killings of both the insurgents and the U.S. That
view tends to absolve Iraqis of much of the responsibility for the violence in
the country, and puts the onus on foreigners.
In 2006, things began to change when Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu
Risha proposed the Awakening. It brought together the religious establishment
and the tribes in Anbar, an issue that’s usually overlooked in American
accounts that just stress the role of the sheikhs. The main motivation for the
Awakening according to Faraji was the extremism of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He said
that they were too dogmatic, and abused religion for their own goals, which was
to take over and kill everyone who was not with them. The Awakening was also
able to cut deals with other insurgents. Faraji for example was sent to Oman by
Abu Risha to see Harith Dhari the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Dhari was working with the insurgency and giving anti-government and
anti-Coalition speeches. Faraji convinced him that Iraqis would eventually rule
their country again after the Americans left, and that therefore he should stop
his remarks about the army and police. This was important for the Awakening,
because they were getting their fighters to join the local security forces in
places like Ramadi and Fallujah at the time. That was one sign of the
importance of the clerics in the Awakening movement. Faraji also believed that
it was the religious backing that the group received that made it popular in
Anbar. Finally, the Americans came around, and learned how to work with the
Anbaris. Together the two fought the insurgency, and turned around the security
situation in the province. In Faraji’s view the murderous ways of Al Qaeda
turned the people in Anbar against them. The Islamists were uncompromising and
foreign led, like an alien body in the province. That eventually united the
Anbaris, and got them to cooperate with the Americans.
The next big change was turning the Awakening into a
political movement. Faraji pointed to the 2009 provincial elections as a turning
point for Anbar. In the January 2005 governorate vote 58% of the electorate
turned out nationally, but only 2% in Anbar. Four years later, the Awakening was demanding elections, and wanted to take power. This time
there was a 40% participation rate in the province, and Abu Risha’s party
took the most seats on the provincial council. This transition from
boycotting the political system to taking part in it was a dramatic change not
only in Anbar, but the entire country. By 2009, Sunnis had largely given up the
gun, and were looking towards the ballot as a way to further their cause. The
Awakening was one example of this transformation in thinking, and was another
cause for a large decrease in violence across the country.
The Marines interviewed Sheikh Faraji with Thamir al-Asafi,
both of the Sunni Endowment at the same time, but they had divergent views of
what happened in Anbar. Asafi emphasized that Iraqis were caught in the middle
between foreign fighters and the Americans. Stuck in that precarious situation
Anbaris decided to form the Awakening to control their own destiny. Faraji had
a similar view, but stressed that it was Al Qaeda and their foreign ideas and
violence, which was the turning point that helped create the Awakening. Asafi
also consistently blamed the U.S. for their misrule of Iraq, while Faraji
praised the Americans for working with the Iraqis to fight the insurgents.
Finally, Asafi said that the U.S. left nothing behind for Iraq after their
occupation, while Faraji wanted a long relationship between the two countries,
which he was hoping would help develop and modernize Iraq. Faraji turned out to
be much more optimistic than Asafi. The former thought that the clerics
provided an important leadership role in Anbar that not only helped decrease
the violence there, but then led to political power. Unfortunately that has not
worked out as Faraji hoped. Today, Anbar feels sidelined by Baghdad, and that
has created not only the protests there, which Faraji is involved with, but the
return of Al Qaeda in Iraq. That is making the province a battlefield once
again both politically and militarily.
SOURCES
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Daragahi, Borzou, “Shiite alliance appears to hold slight
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Farrell, Stephen, “Election Turnout: Early Figures,” Baghdad
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Fletcher, Martin, “Fighting back: the city determined not to
become al-Qaeda’s capital,” Times of London, 11/20/06
Jaffe, Greg, “How Courting Sheikhs Slowed Violence in Iraq,”
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Katulis, Brian, Juul, Peter, and Moss, Ian, “Awakening to
New Dangers in Iraq,” Center for American Progress, February 2008
Klein, Joe, “Saddam’s Revenge,” Time, 9/26/05
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