Who, exactly, are the US allies and enemies in Iraq today?

So who is fighting who in Iraq these days?

Used to be it was the US and the ‘Iraqis’ against the ‘terrorists.’ Then the ‘terrorists’ became the ‘insurgents’ (those rising up in active revolt). Then the enemy was one of the many confusing iterations of al Qaeda, or more accurate, a cell or cells within the al Qaeda network.

Then everything degenerated into a ‘civil war’ where the US role was to hold the ‘combatants’ apart.

Recently, the US hooked-up with the Sunnis to take on the terrorist/insurgent/Al-Queda-types.

More recently still, as this article in Reuters explains, “U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term “concerned local nationals” to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.”

Colluding with the “concerned local nationals” is part of a new U.S. tactic of cooperating with their former Sunni Arab foes against foreign al Qaeda terrorists who are backed and supplied by Iran … and maybe Syria.

The US has now has the same number of allies fighting the same number of enemies as the so-far announced number of reasons for going into Iraq in the first place.

The confusions of this war are exacerbated by the fact that some combatants don’t wear uniforms. Many of these are Iraqi citizens who want the occupying force to leave and to get their country back.

Many of the forces involved in this occupation/civil war/war have not read the Geneva Convention.