What's an insurgent?

Well, I suppose an honest definition of an insurgent is a fighter from a foreign country, armed by its government, who enters a different country and commits acts of violence intended to help his homeland. The Bush administration, on the other hand, defines an insurgent as anybody who meets that description but only if they happen to be fighting on behalf of an enemy country. That's the best I can distill it.

Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”

I suppose if the civil war in Iraq was adhering to some sort of cartoonish rule about how civil wars are supposed to be fought--one big Sunni army was fighting one big Shiite army for control of the country--then it might be wise to pick one side comprised of allied local fighters and insurgents. And I suppose then Saudi Arabia wouldn't run the risk of arming the wrong Sunnis as they very well may be now. And I suppose it would make more sense to direct our ire at Iran for arming the "real" insurgents, fighting with the Shiites on the opposite side.

What we're doing instead is arming certain Sunnis outside of Baghdad who are engaged in a fractured proxy with in some cases Shiites and in some cases other Sunnis. We're  at the same time growing upset with Saudi Arabia for arming anybody at all because their Sunni fighters might sometimes take arms against the Sunnis that we're arming. Whatever the logic is there, we're also arming the Shiite led government inside of Baghdad (which is itself being undermined by the Saudi Sunnis) and inching towards war with Iran in part because Iran is arming its own Shiites (who are in some cases sympathetic to the government and in some cases not).

And we're hoping that somehow the mess of conflicting priorities I described above will all lead us to a point in the future when Iraq--freed from interference by neighboring countries--will broadly legitimate the government in Baghdad and suffer minimal factional violence in any of its cities.

Manufacturing that outcome will of course be impossible no matter what we do, but particularly so if we continue actively subverting every one of our own goals.

Comments

[JimPortlandOR]

I think your definition of insurgent is not correct, in the dictionary sense, and in the real-world sense in Iraq. Home-grown Sunnis and Shia can be insurgents, completely supported by Iraqi resources.

is a fighter from a foreign country, armed by its government, who enters a different country and commits acts of violence intended to help his homeland.

Dictionary.com defines the word from several sources as follows:

a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, esp. a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel.

The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka were/are home-grown, I believe. There isn't a foreign connection (origin of the fighter or support by outside country) needed to earn the word. Armed resistence is the source of the concept.

The Nicaraguan Sandinista terrorists were another home-grown insurgent group, that was opposed by another insurgent group of locals (the Contras) but with outside (US) support.