Quote

Almost immediately, I remember right when Tikrit even fell, a few days after Baghdad fell, there was talks of insurgency, there was talks of jihad and of resisting the American occupiers, and slowly this turned into an organized movement.

— Farnaz Fassihi

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

— Noam Chomsky

By the end of 2008, clearly, the al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency had been relatively stabilized. And in the al Qaeda's mind, they were defeated. They actually said that in many of their transmissions that we were able to pick up. And the Shia militia, largely those trained by the Iranians in Basra and also in Sadr City, had been defeated.

— Jack Keane

In the late 1980s, a new revolt broke out, this time led by the fundamentalist FIS (Islamic Salvation Front). Many of its leaders were the kind of young Algerians who joined the struggle against the French occupiers in the 1950s.

— Alistair Horne

The advent of self-government for the Iraqi people is a watershed moment in their history.

— Todd Akin

During the surge in Iraq, we were able to roll back the tide of al-Qaeda and associated insurgents because we succeeded in mobilizing Iraqis - especially Sunni Arabs - to join us in fighting against the largely Sunni extremist networks in their midst.

— David Petraeus

We are tangled in a very significant Islamic insurgency in Iraq.

— Michael Scheuer

There have been linkages between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda going back more or less a decade.

— Douglas Feith

I was in Iraq in the worst period, 2006, but from 2006 to 2008, and especially through 2011, the American military and the government of Iraq made huge strides in making that country a source of stability with a relatively representative government that was seeking pluralistic engagement from all the factions within the government.

— Tom Cotton

I left Kurdistan in April 2003 with the peshmerga, following their excited advance as Saddam's forces crumbled. First Kirkuk, then Mosul - where looters broke into the city museum and seized its Parthian sculptures - then Tikrit. I reported from Baghdad in month-long stints until the end of 2004.

— Luke Harding

✗Opposing Perspectives

The American surge of combat forces into Baghdad that was ordered by President Bush worked. And there was a calm, a relative calm that descended on the country kind of late 2008. That pretty much held until the last American combat soldiers left at the end of 2011.

— Dexter Filkins