talking to the resistance:
(...) I think the thing we found was they were socially diverse, some had served in the military, some had not. There were some Sunni and some Shi'a, like the Traveler and the Syrian. What surprised us was in some ways how understandable, normal it was once you heard them explain what they were fighting for, their motivations. It started to make more sense. We didn't know what we would find, but that was a little bit surprising. They said "we are defending our land, we don't want to be occupied. Our honor is attacked by foreign troops on the soil." Generally their feeling wasn't anti-American hatred, or hatred of America "because of our freedom." It was because soldiers were on the ground. It wouldn't have mattered if those troops were French or Chinese or American.
(...) He said we want to have a good relationship with America, but send us your engineers or scholars, not your warriors who shoot the place up.
(...) This is the first insurgency in history where you can't cut the head off because there is no head. Leadership is going where your followers want you to go. That was a really valuable lesson for us. [first in history? strongly doubt that]
(...) The major difference between Sunni and Shi'a in this context is that the Sunni are going to make their individual decision. They have a more "Protestant" direct relationship with God, they will make their own decision about Jihad. Shia have a more "Catholic" perspective, they will follow the rules and fatwas laid down by their leaders. Some follow Sistani, some follow Sadr, and there are other leaders. If you look at the control the Shi'a leaders have over the population, it's almost like a tap. Sadr can turn the tap on, say "I want you out demonstrating, or he can say "I want everyone to stay home, so there's this really direct control the Shi'a leadership has that doesn't exist on the Sunni side.
(...) In pulling his cabinet members this week, Sadr says he wants those positions filled by technocrats, to diminish the sectarian elements in the government.
(...) I don't know if you spotted this, but there is a sort of "re-nationalism" coming up, after that bomb attack in the Green Zone the other day, which was purported to be by a suicide bomber. There's talk of a shadow government being formed, a non-sectarian political bloc of Sadrists and Sunni nationalists. So this is spinning out into a very interesting way.
(...) . We've found that there's a sense of relief there, that "Hey, I'm not going crazy, it's not about two-headed monsters, this is bout normal human beings and normal motivations. Once you understand this first year of the resistance, a lot of other things fall in to place.