An explosive cocktail of religious extremism laced with nationalism
During the 17-month insurgency against the United States-led occupation of Iraq, American officials have drawn a consistent picture of the rebels they face: religious extremists and so-called 'dead- enders' associated with the former regime as well as foreigners who slip into the country across its porous borders.
But weeks of interviews with Iraqis of various political hues reveals something starkly different: a growing and intensely nationalist resistance aimed at removing US forces and their Iraqi allies.
'One of the basic mistakes the coalition made was mis-describing those who had decided to take up arms against the coalition and now the current interim Iraqi government,' says Sharif Ali bin Hussein, heir to Iraq's deposed king and head of Iraq's main monarchist party.
'The resistance is basically from groups that were marginalised and disenfranchised by the political process in Iraq when the US decided to impose its exile friends from abroad without giving a role to ordinary Iraqis after liberation.'
As the Americans prepare for an all-out assault on Fallujah and other rebel strongholds, Iraqi critics say the US field commanders' inability to distinguish between different parts of the resistance has hampered the ability to win Iraqi friends and secure the peace.
Some US counter-insurgency specialists concede that Iraqis take up arms out of frustration with a troubled occupation rather than an inherent hatred of the US.
'The military option cannot be the only option to solving the insurgency,' said one US general.
But US officials reject the notion that Iraqi nationalism - rather than religious extremism - fuels the violence.
'I don't buy the idea that the resistance is nationalistic. Someone may jump up and attack us and say that this is for Iraq. That doesn't make it so,' said US army Brigadier-General John Defreitas.
