Foreign Policy in Focus contributor Daniel DePetris discusses his article “Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s Strategy for 2012,” which boils down to restarting the sectarian civil war through terrorism designed to provoke Shia retribution; Iraq’s attempted reintegration into regional affairs through the first Arab League Summit in Baghdad in decades; how Gen. Petraeus’s surge strategy helped security in the short term, but didn’t fix any sectarian political problems; the Maliki government’s refusal to integrate the Sunni “Sons of Iraq” into the national security forces; and Maliki’s martial law approach to combating terrorism – which is losing him the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis.
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