Originally posted by Liberator
Firstly, there is no "Iraqi" resistance. The attacks are being organized and carried out by foreign(Iranian, Saudi, and others) terrorists who realize that if Iraq suceeds, their little tinpot dictatorships are boned.
Saudi? Boned? By who?
I believe you're massively underestimating the Iraqi opposition; firstly, remember that Saddam was scarcely without a power base when he was in power, and there will doubtless be die hard Sunni loyalists. Not to mention those Iraqis who - as a result of religion, collateral damage or foreign policy - have come to dislike or hate the US. And finally the more 'amateur' lot - such as in Falluja - who take up arms in response to perceived attacks upon them during heavy handed US 'pacification' operations.
In Fallujah in particular, the US itself estimated 90% of the fighters there were Iraqis. Of 8,000 guerilla suspects jailed across Iraq, only [bb]127[/b] have foreign passports. During the Fallujah 'uprising', apparently it was being led by local clerics rather than foreigners; in fact, this can most definately be applied to al-Sadrs al-Mahdi Army.
There are certainly high-profile foreigners involved within the insurgency; al-Zarqawi being the obvious one. But, at the same time, Us commanders have themselves estimated the number of foreign fighters at being only 5%. I'd also suggest that it would be wrong to equate the Iraqis actively fighting the US occupation & coalition government as being the only Iraqis who
oppose it.
Finally, I believe you're missing the point of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in general. It's not to attack the US per se (it just happens the US is a particularly juicy target thanks to various foreign policy decisions), but to create 'spectacular' events or consequences that will inspire Islamic revolutions in their own countries; hence why so many foreign fighters were in Afghanistan and supporting the Taliban, in particular. It's worth noting the training camps in Afghanistan were not just for 'international terrorists' as is usually implied, but also for domestic terrorists or guerillas.