AMSI on the need for a resistance-wide agreement on political aims (Updated)

The open letter of the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) to the Iraqi resistance, to which the indefatigable Marc Lynch draws everyone's attention, includes this passage that I think illustrates better than anything where they see themselves in the history of Iraq:

The current stage...is that the occupation is on the verge of withdrawal and defeat...with the help of God and his strength. And just as the American administration was put to the test of drawing up a successful policy for the country, once they occupied it, and met with devastating failure, for many reasons, the main ones being your jihad and your sacrifices, so now you are going to be faced with the same test, and you are going to have to be at the level of this responsibility, and draw up a policy for the country that will be successful.

And this is not something that can be minimized, as some might do who have no experience in the area, because in fact there are obstacles in the way of that aim.

The first requirement is for a unified political program, in which you outline the future of this country, whose people have put confidence in you, and look to you to be extricated from the crisis. We stress the need for agreement because it is the first step toward success. As far as we understand your positions, you have clear program, but there are differences in your view of how Iraq should be in the future. Some of the factions among you support the project of the great caliphate. Other factions are for an Islamic government in Iraq but they limit their ambitions to within the borders of Iraq. And there are other factions that support the option of working for the establishment of a nation of modern institutions, in which Islam would be the official religion of the country, and the basic model for legislation, so that no law could be contrary to it, and they make this the basis of their aims.

These differences have to be resolved now, and before the exit of the occupation, because they will otherwise lead to final differences, and then to the internal fighting about which we warned above... We in the Muslim Scholars Association issued an urgent call to the sons of jihad to consider this question thoroughly, and prepare to take up their responsibilities on the front lines with the people of Iraq, and we asked them to start discussions among themselves and begin to show flexibility in this matter...And as a preliminary measure we have been urging for months that the factions agree at least on the level of meetings and coordination [apparently referring to tactical coordination in the resistance] and we now see that this is happening, praise God, and we support that...

The day when that happens [meaning agreement among the factions on a unified political program] the occupation will find itself forced to deal with it--directly or indirectly--because it will have become the Front that has become, on account of the unity of its aims and projects, a great power than cannot be ignored. Either that [dealing with the Front directly or indirectly] or else it will be forced to simply leave the country to its people. And in either case it will be within our power to direct our convoy in the direction that we choose, and not in the direction that the occupation dictates.

[Al-Hayat, in its Friday edition, quotes this same passage at length, and also what came next in the statement, namely this:

You must also understand something extremely important, and it is that it is not you alone who represent the Iraqi people or who own the jihadi project. There is an environment that fosters the jihadi resistance, without which the work would be impossible--there are those who finance the work; the political and non-political forces that reject the occupation; those with functions and expertise of all kinds in the military and the civilian spheres who refuse to work with the occupation; and the population as a whole of all sects and races who have not connived with the occupation.

The reporter notes that elsewhere the statement reminded the armed resistance groups that the mere fact of bearing arms doesn't necessarily qualify someone for running a country. And that internal fighting in the resistance will in effect throw Bush the life-jacket he needs to claim a form of victory, and it further warns that if there isn't unity soon in the ranks of the resistance, it is possible that the result could be a "bitter harvest" that will make the people yearn for a return to the situation as it is now, just as now some yearn for the prior regime, even though those days were not peaceful either.]

For my part, I think this conveys a little different overall picture of the resistance, compared with what we have seen so far, because from this point of view, the biggest problem is no longer how to defeat the Americans, something that is already basically done, nor is it how to foil other post-occupation schemes (although this letter does take up that problem too), or merely the need to avoid premature negotiations with the occupation. Rather, the biggest problem is how to get together and compromise on a unified political program. When and if that can be done, according to this point of view, in terms of the end-game, if the Americans want to negotiate, they will have a stable and representative negotiating partner, and if they don't, then they can just leave. It is a point of view that reflects confidence in the American defeat, but at the same time perhaps a high level of anxiety respecting the need for political skills among the resistance factions.