The Israelis tried to do exactly the same thing by ceding Gaza and bits of the West Bank to the PLO. They had Hamas waiting, way tougher and younger than Fatah, and hoped the Pals would duke it out - the old, weak Arafat cronies vs. the bloods from Hamas. The reason they knew Hamas was in the mood to go to the mattress is that it was the Israeli secret services that created Hamas in the first place.
See, that's the problem though: you set up two insurgent factions at each other's throats and you're likely to be running a tournament, with the meanest and most determined bastards winning. And that's not who you want for neighbors. The Israelis had some early successes sparking feuds between Palestinian factions. It's not exactly rocket science getting Arabs at each others' throats. The hard part, and the part where the Israelis lost their nerve, is staying out of the way long enough to let the puppet government you've set up get strong enough to take on the hardliners in a really big, bloody civil war. In Ireland, the Brits gave Collins, a guy they hated like poison, not just their backing, but heavy artillery. Now that, is discipline. And sure enough, Collins' forces couldn't wait till the guns were offloaded to start bombarding Dublin neighborhoods where their hardline enemies were holed up.
The Israelis couldn't stay out of the little Palestinian pockets they'd handed over to the PLO, because some Hamas or Islamic Jihad kid would blow himself up in a Tel Aviv deli and the public would demand that the IAF go blast some Pal refugee camp. It made the public happy, but then the public, any public, is a *****. And in the long run, it meant that the Pals never stopped having some new Israeli raid to be mad about, so they couldn't get around to the next step of hating each other enough to get a decent civil war going.
So yeah, this is a cool, clever strategy but I don't give anybody enough credit for sheer cold-blooded smarts to do it except the Brits. And I mean the old Brits, not these poor saps today who tagged along with Dubya for the ride to Baghdad.
Not even those old-school Brits could do it now, in Iraq. Because whereas the 1920-vintage IRA had a fairly disciplined leadership to play games with, we've got -- who? -- to talk to in Iraq. You'd be better off trying to divide and conquer the roaches in your kitchen. Nobody runs the insurgency, and nobody really runs the Shia militias either, not at national level. Sadr? He's their poster boy as long as he mouths off the way the hardliners want, but he'll go the way of Sistani if he tries to curb the boys' enthusiasm. They don't need help. They're having the time of their lives. It's not so much fun for the other focus groups, like women and men over 25 but for Iraqi boys from 15-25, these are the Wonder Years.
The key measurement for insurgencies in all these strategies is leadership, ranging from the almost Inca-style pyramid structure of the VC/NVA to total chaos. The steeper the pyramid, the more room you have to play with CI options, especially the ones involving negotiation. The more chaotic and localized the insurgents, the more you start thinking about those nice, clean red diameter-circles you get with our old friends the nukes.
You mean like last year when the IDF tried to destroy Hezbollah? Oh yah, that worked out great...
Propably. But then I'm sure if the UN just decided to take Kansas and give it to a bunch of Muslims you probably wouldn't be too happy about it either.
