BAGHDAD, Iraq – The call by Iraq’s top Shiite authority for all Iraqis to take up arms and defend the country against Islamist militants who are sweeping across the country demonstrates the helplessness of Iraq’s collapsed army before the advance.
"Citizens who are able to bear arms and fight terrorists, defending their country and their people and their holy places, should volunteer and join the security forces to achieve this holy purpose," said a statement by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
The aging and senior cleric’s statement was read by his representative during Friday prayers at the holy Shiite city of Karbala, as militants of the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria continued their advance toward Baghdad after capturing most of the country’s Sunni areas from fleeing Iraqi forces.
Baghdad-based analyst Mohammed al-Faisal said that Sistani’s comments were a call to unity in Iraq, where the Shiite-led government has alienated the minority Sunnis, the Kurds and some of its own fellow Shiite allies.
“Iraq is facing exceptional and difficult circumstances which require everyone to unite and work as a team to get Iraq out of the crisis,”Faisal said.
He added that by controlling large areas in central Iraq the Islamic militants are trying to take over oil refineries and pipelines to fund their wars in Iraq and Syria.
Since Saturday last week the ISIS, with the help of former Baathist officials and discharged army officers from Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime, have made impressive gains in the country’s Sunni provinces, controlling Mosul, Tikrit, Hawija, Fallujah and Ramadi.
With the collapse of Iraq’s armed forces in almost all Sunni areas and their retreat to the Shiite south, many Iraqis have urged the government to seek the help of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces.
But Kurdish leaders are reluctant to join the fight, though they have already moved into miles of Kurdish territory outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region which were abandoned by the Iraqi army, including Kirkuk.
“The security situation in Iraq needs cooperation between the Kurdish region and Baghdad as Peshmarga forces are experienced, organized, ready, efficient and a force to reckon with,” said Kurdish MP in Baghdad, Mahma Khalil.
“In the past, the central government opposed the presence of Peshmerga forces in some areas, but the situation now requires everyone to participate,” he added.
Meanwhile, like most Iraqi leaders and local residents, Khalil said he was shocked by the quick defeat of the Iraqi army.
“We were surprised by the collapse, after the government spent billions of dollars on the military,” he said. “The government has failed politically, economically and in security,” he said.
“On top of that, Baghdad cut off all communication with KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government). If those connections had existed ISIS would not be able to control Mosul now,” Khalil added.
He echoed what top Kurdish leaders in Erbil have long been saying, that defending Iraq is a national duty and the Peshmerga are part of Iraq’s defensive forces.
Within hours of the ISIS’s successful attack on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, tens of thousands of civilians fled to the safety of the Kurdistan Region, joining some 250,000 Syrian refugees already settled in the region.
Ashwaq Jaff, an MP of the Kurdish bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said she was surprised that the federal government was reluctant to officially ask for Peshmerga help, while Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was requesting all countries to help, including with possible drone attacks by the United States.
“Maliki, during his speech, requested support from all the neighboring countries and the international community, but did not ask the Kurdistan Region to provide support,” Jaff noted. She said that was “strange and questionable.”
Maliki may know that any Kurdish help would come with a heavy price tag, such as an immediate release of Kurdistan’s budget, unconditional agreement to Erbil’s oil sales and return of Kurdish land in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk and Diyala.
