A Political Strategy Against the Islamic State in Iraq

Regular readers of this newspaper will be quite familiar with the story of how the Jihadis of the Islamic State (ISIS) made a comeback in Iraq. It is a story of broken promises and complete alienation of the Sunni Arab community in the country, combined with the chaos in neighbouring Syria (which is also related to the disenfranchisement of the Sunni Arab community there). The recent fall of Ramadi and the destruction of the important Baiji refinery, despite all the military assistance to the Iraqi government, highlight the need for a political strategy to complement the military effort in Iraq. To understand the outlines of the needed political strategy, we need only remember key factors that led Iraqis to their current crisis with ISIS.

In 2006, American General David Petraeus reached out to Sunni Arab tribes that had grown weary of the brutality and uncompromising extremism of al Qaeda in Iraq, an ISIS predecessor. He offered them weapons, a salary for providing security in their own regions and a future in Iraq in return for cooperating with Coalition Forces and the Iraqi government. Although this was done against the wishes of Nuri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad, a new Prime Minister (at the time) that was very reliant on American support could hardly object enough to block the initiative. At great risk to themselves and a high cost in blood and treasure (both American and Iraqi), the Sunni Arab tribes bought into the scheme and took on the extremists in their midst. By the time of the American military withdrawal from Iraq in late 2010-2011, the insurgency in the country was largely defeated. The government in Baghdad and Iraqis in general looked forward to increasing stability and building their future.

We know what happened after that, however. The Sunni Awakening Councils went unpaid after being transferred to Baghdad’s responsibility. Despite winning a plurality of the votes in the March 2010 general election, the majority Sunni party of Iyad Alawi was denied their right to try and form the next government. Instead, an increasingly authoritarian and power-centralizing Prime Minister Maliki remained in office. Promises to share power with Alawi’s party, the Kurds and others were never fulfilled.

When leading Sunni Arab politician and Vice-President Tarek al-Hashimi reacted to Mr. Maliki’s policies and supported Sunni efforts in Diyala and other governorates to form their own region (and thereby carve out some autonomous space vis-à-vis Baghdad), the Maliki-controlled judiciary put out an arrest warrant for him on “terrorism” charges. This was only two days after the withdrawal of the last American troops in December 2011. Arrest warrants for other leading Sunni politicians, such as Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi, soon followed.  Sunni Arab popular protests were met with brutal repression. In short, the trust that moderate Sunni Arab Iraqis had shown by trying to cooperate with the new regime and play by the rules was betrayed.

After such a betrayal of trust, how can the “new” Haidar al-Abadi government regain it? At this point, of course, deeds go a lot further than words to mollify betrayed groups. Real power sharing and autonomy – political, administrative and financial – would go a long way towards reassuring Sunni Arabs that there is still a place for them in the new Iraq. These can hardly be offered while ISIS controls most of the Sunni Arab parts of the country, however. So what to do?

The simple answer is to offer more political and financial autonomy to the Kurds, to Kirkuk and to Shiite Arab governorates – all of whom are not under ISIS control. Prime Minister Abadi always talks the right talk about the need for more decentralization. It is time for him to assert control over recalcitrant forces within his own party (including now Vice-President Maliki) and make decentralization a reality. The creation of a Sunni Arab national guard is a start. Allowing Kirkuk and the likes of Basra to become their own regions could also show Sunni Arabs that Article 119 of the Constitution, which allows for this, is a real option for them rather than just words on paper. Federalism in Iraq needs more than one region to function properly, with a Federacy Council complementing Parliament as Article 65 of the Constitution promises. Although most Kurds want Kirkuk to become part of Kurdistan, becoming its own region would address the worries of Arabs and Turcomen in the province (not to mention the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s concerns over adding an overwhelmingly pro-Patriotic Union of Kurdistan area to its political boundaries). Allowing Kurdistan a lot more autonomous control over oil contracts, exports and a guaranteed share of the national budget would likewise set the right example for other future regions and allay fears of more betrayals.

Or Baghdad could continue on without offering anything Sunni Arabs believe, and in the process keep losing battles against ISIS.

* David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014, Palgrave Macmillan).

* The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.