It seems so obvious to me....

...but then I'm just some guy in a call center.

I just read this:

Baghdad’s Sunni residents battle insurgents
Locals join fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq; mayor hopes U.S. stays away

BAGHDAD - Sunni residents of a west Baghdad neighborhood used assault rifles and a roadside bomb to battle the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq this week, leaving at least 28 people dead and six injured, residents said Thursday.

The mayor of the Amiriyah neighborhood, Mohammed Abdul Khaliq, said in a telephone interview that residents were rising up to try to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has alienated other Sunnis with its indiscriminate violence and attacks on members of its own sect.

Though the Republicans like to paint all Muslims with one broad brush, I have always privately thought that the goals of the native insurgents and Al Quaeda in Iraq were different enough that they might turn on one another. In fact, I am not particularly convinced that Al Quaeda, with it's rigid fundamentalism, is particularly popular amongst Muslims in Iraq, or anywhere. I suspected that Iraqis found them useful, and that if they stopped being useful, they would see them as foreign interlopers and would want them to leave.

Some of the quotes in this story bear this out:

Problems arose on Tuesday when the Islamic Army, a powerful Sunni insurgent group, posted a statement at a local mosque criticizing al-Qaeda in Iraq for killing dozens of other Sunnis in Fallujah and Baghdad "on suspicion only," without sufficient evidence that they had done something wrong, according to a copy sent to The Washington Post. The message warned al-Qaeda in Iraq to stop the practice, which it said could lead to clashes between them.

Late Wednesday afternoon, according to residents reached by phone who would not be quoted by name for security reasons, an armed group scrawled graffiti on a school wall reading: "Down with al-Qaeda, long live the honest resistance." When al-Qaeda in Iraq members came to wipe away the writing, a roadside bomb exploded nearby, killing three of them, residents said.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq then attacked a mosque associated with the Islamic Army, killing the group's leader, Razi al-Zobai, and four other fighters, complaining in a statement that the Islamic Army had become involved in the political process in Iraq, residents said. In retaliation, the Islamic Army attacked a mosque associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, killing one of the group's leaders, known as Sheik Hamid, and four other members, including Waleed Saber Tikriti, a doctor who treated al-Qaeda in Iraq's wounded, residents said

I don't think this necessarily means we have turned any corners, however. Iraqi insurgents are fighting for control of Iraq. If they see us as a threat to that-and I think it is obvious they do-and Al Quaeda in Iraq seems useful to them, they would almost assuredly strike up their alliance again:

Abdul Khaliq said he hoped U.S. forces would stay out of the fight. "But if the Americans interfere, it will blow up, because they are the enemy of us both, and we will unite against them and stop fighting each other," he said

I won't make the mistake of taking all of this at face value. Loyalties will shift constantly in a paramilitary-led war. Rhetoric is one thing, action is another. It's not like I have some direct connection to work with here-I am a blogger, writing in my spare time, working off of second-hand information from a confusing war zone.

I do think that Al-Quaeda is less popular in a real sense than it might actually seem. There could be many reasons-political, economic, social-that might motivate someone to become a terrorist or insurgent, and a religious believer might make a connection between political and religious domination without believing in rigid fundamentalist doctrine (think Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland). These people might find Al-Quaeda's ability to send zealous soldiers into buildings with bombs strapped to their bodies a usefull tool. It's almost like they're using Al-Quaeda as some sort of proxy army. But this does not mean that all potential Muslim terrorists share the same overall goals as Al-Quaeda's nuttiness, any more than the U.S. did when it funnelled support to the Mujahideen in the '80s.

I think that Al-Quaeda, while definitely not to be underestimated, is a stoppable force. But the Bush administration's constant saber-rattling about regime change plays into their hands in a way that is almost certain to make them more and more powerful no matter how many setbacks like this they might suffer.