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What will be the long-term result of the current Sunni tribal cooperation with American Forces in the Anbar province?

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What will be the long-term result of the current Sunni tribal cooperation with American Forces in the Anbar province?

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BRIAN KATULIS: At this point, it is not very clear that this tribal cooperation will lead to long-term stability in Iraq. Thursday’s killing of a key tribal leader that President Bush met with raises questions about whether this initiative truly represents “bottom up” reconciliation and will result in sustainable security. After experiencing brutal atrocities at the hands of foreign fighters and other extremists, certain elements of the tribes formed an alliance to address this threat—long before the 2007 surge of U.S. forces began. U.S. commanders took advantage of these changing dynamics by offering financial support and cooperation to these tribal elements, as well as helping create “irregular” forces drawn from Sunni tribes to police local communities. There are two main risks to this initiative. First, key leaders in the Iraqi central government have expressed their unease and in some cases outright opposition to these efforts because they saw it as undermining the Iraqi security

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