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The optimist in me sees this as part of a developing end game which we dare not call victory lest we jinx it. The optimist in me is usually getting his ass kicked by my inner pessimist, though.
Given Iraq's demographics and the perception of the US as a paper tiger, Ba'athist and Sunni insurgent elements (there is significant overlap) had one overarching goal: create enough chaos that the US and its allies would seek a compromise, abandoning any hope of democratization and putting a strongman (ideally of course, a Sunni Ba'athist) back in charge, in the hopes of achieving stability.
The April 2004 decision to abandon hopes of reestablishing control over Fallujah, and instead empowering a former Ba'athist general to lead a "Fallujah Brigade", probably only encouraged them.
Over the past year, or at least since November 2004, when we retook Fallujah, and in the wake of the January 2005 elections, many Sunnis began to reevaluate that strategy. Now, significant elements of major Sunni tribes, as well as mid-level Ba'athists and former Iraqi officers, have concluded that the strategy failed. The US did not cut and run, and the other elements of Iraqi society only increased their power.
The Islamists, whose goal was pretty much chaos for chaos' sake, to weaken America and its allies in general, and who care little for Iraq's future, overplayed their hand by attacking less committed Sunnis, creating tribal vendettas, as well as Shi'ites who had tribal ties to Sunnis.
So now many Sunnis are looking for a way out. They are looking to establish control over Sunni areas with two objectives: (i) to be seen as a positive force so the US and the Iraqi government will accept them into the political process; and (ii) to establish control over Sunni areas so that as US forces draw down, these Sunnis will be in a position to take local control rather than Kurdish and Shi'ite units of the Iraqi Army from other parts of the country. Basically, having lost hope of retaking control of all of Iraq, they are looking for a way to incentivize the Americans and the Iraqi government to at least give them control of a chunk of Iraq. Presumably, they would also like to leverage the carrot - "we can bring stability to the Sunni Triangle so America can go home" - and the stick - "we are organized and can cause problems" - to also get some share of Iraq's oil wealth, since most of Iraq's oil industry is in non-Sunni areas.
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