That’s the title of a post by hamzacom on the Faloja forum. In it, he draws an analogy with Afghanistan just after the U.S. invasion. It was a time of defeat for the mujahids but now they are resurging. The same will happen in Iraq.
Other forum members are predictably annoyed by hamzacom’s pessimistic title. Abu `Umar al-Masri retorts that it is merely “a knight’s stumble,” not a loss. Qannas al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (“The Islamic State’s Hunter”) is even more optimistic: “We will never lose the war as long as God is with us.”
Others share hamzacom’s pessimism but are nonchalant. “If al-Qaeda has lost the war, what’s the problem?” Shabab Lubnan (“Youth of Lebanon”) states blithely. “There really isn’t a problem. There are a number of Jihadi groups that possess the idea of al-Qaeda even if they do not aid (the organization) publicly. It is possible for these groups to launch a new war and to undertake the duty of jihad if al-Qaeda loses the war.”
The most sober commentator is Abu al-Fadl Madi, whose work we’ve been reading. Abu Fadl believes the insurgency was largely comprised of members of the Iraqi army that the U.S. disbanded and left without a livelihood. Now that the U.S. has started paying them off, they have stopped fighting and the insurgency has ended. The only true resistance to the occupation was Zarqawi and his men; everything else was limited and spontaneous. “The resistance will not return to Iraq,” Abu al-Fadl remarks, “until al-Qaeda returns to the theater of jihad. But that won’t happen until after careful study of the lessons (learned).”
Document (Arabic): 9-4-08-faloja-member-believes-aq-is-losing-war-in-iraq