The
Reawakened Specter of Iraqi Civil War
Michael Wahid
Hanna
April 17, 2009
(Michael
Wahid Hanna is program officer for international affairs
at the Century Foundation in New York. He conducted research
in Iraq in 2006 and 2008.)
| For
background on the Iraqi provincial elections, see Reidar
Visser, “A
Litmus Test for Iraq,” Middle East Report Online,
January 30, 2009. |
April has already
been a cruel month in Iraq. A spate of bombings aimed at Shi‘i
civilians in Baghdad has raised fears that the grim sectarian
logic that led the capital to civil war in 2005-2007 will reassert
itself. On April 6, a string of six car bombs killed at least
37 people; the next day, shortly after President Barack Obama
landed in Baghdad, another car bomb killed eight; and on the
morrow, still another bomb blew up close to the historic Shi‘i
shrine in Kadhimiyya just northwest of the capital’s central
districts, taking an additional seven civilian lives. Worryingly
for Iraqis, the bombings occurred following gun battles between
the security forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi‘i-led
government and Sunni Arab militiamen, fueling rumors that the
disgruntled militiamen have spearheaded the violent campaign.
The crackdown
by Iraqi security forces on the Sunni Arab militiamen, known
as the Awakenings (sahwat) in Arabic and referred to as
the Sons of Iraq by the US military, pitted two ostensible US
allies against one another. Together with arrests of other prominent
militia leaders and the concrete timeline for the drawdown of
US troops, the confrontations have raised questions as to whether
some among these armed Sunni Arab factions are ready to return
to insurgency in response to their treatment by Maliki’s government.
The fate of the sahwat is but one aspect of a larger struggle
over the nature of the Iraqi state and its component parts --
a struggle in which the United States is increasingly relegated
to a subsidiary role. This latest phase of the intra-Iraqi wrangling
that dates back almost to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime,
could tip the country back into sectarian civil war and complicate
Obama’s efforts to extricate the US military from Iraq.
The Awakenings
The
Awakening movement arose prior to the 2007 “surge” of US troops
and the adoption in Washington of an alternative strategy focused
on counterinsurgency. The factors leading to the improvement
of the security situation have been the subject of considerable
political controversy; it is universally acknowledged, however,
that the Awakening movement was a crucial factor in the reduction
of violence in areas previously inhabited or even controlled
by the Sunni Arab insurgency. Previous efforts at outreach to
tribal leaders, with whom the various insurgent groups were increasingly
intertwined from the summer of 2003 onward, had been ad hoc and
failed to produce lasting cooperation or a blueprint for future
action. The first organized and sustained tactical alliances
between US forces and Sunni Arab tribal leaders arose in 2006
in Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar province, under the leadership
of Col. Sean MacFarland.
It
is difficult at this juncture to catalog precisely the types
of impetus for the sea change in attitudes among Sunni Arab tribal
leaders and former insurgents represented by the Awakening movement.
Many analysts have understood the shift in their strategic calculus
as a response to the brutality and arrogance of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,[1] and that group’s efforts to assert
its control over rival insurgents and tribal leaders in its areas
of operation.[2] Additionally,
by 2007 the sectarian civil war had eclipsed the anti-US insurgency
and become the lens through which many Sunni Arabs perceived
their long-term interests. The tactical US alliances with local
forces were replicated throughout al-Anbar province and were
later formalized and extended to other areas of the country,
including Baghdad and “mixed” provinces, such as Diyala, Ninewa
and Kirkuk, where no sectarian or ethnic group constitutes a
large majority. The Awakenings eventually came to number over
100,000 militiamen. While the sahwat remained overwhelmingly
Sunni Arab, US forces had some success in recruiting Shi‘i tribal
forces into similar arrangements in the north and south of the
country as well.
These
alliances arose on a bilateral basis, without input from the
Iraqi government, and were established outside the formal structures
of the nascent post-Saddam Iraqi state. The arrangements were
viewed warily by the Shi‘i Islamist and Kurdish political parties
that held sway in the Green Zone after 2005 and even by the more
established Sunni-identified parties. As such, US support was
not indefinitely sustainable, and the military sought an alternate
long-term solution that required the integration of these militiamen
into the Iraqi security forces. The mutual suspicion between
the Iraqi government and the sahwat complicated this approach.
Brig. Gen. Nasir al-Hiti, commander of the Muthanna Brigade in
Abu Ghraib, described members of the sahwat as “like cancer”
and went on to say that the Iraqi government “must remove them.”[3] Others
in the government have publicly acknowledged the important role
of the sahwat in tamping down violence but have intimated
that the process of integration risks infiltration of the security
services by hostile elements. In this vein, national security
adviser Muwaffaq al-Ruba‘i warned, “Once we get al-Qaeda in our
security services, then we are doomed.”[4] Despite
the Maliki government’s assumption of responsibility for the
payment of the militiamen and its repeated assurances that some
portion of the sahwat will be integrated, most have not
been.[5]
In fact, the
Iraqi government has undertaken periodic raids upon the offices
and homes of militia leaders, arresting several. The government’s
targeting of the councils is part of a gradual process that began
in 2008. The most conspicuous crackdown prior to April’s occurred
in the restive “mixed” province of Diyala, where numerous sahwa leaders
were detained in the course of an August 2008 military operation.
The March 28, 2009 arrest of ‘Adil al-Mashhadani, chief of a
militia in the heavily Sunni Arab district of Fadhl in Baghdad,
was notable for the scope of the operation employed to detain
him and for the violent resistance it provoked. The Iraqi government
justified the arrest on the basis of a December 2008 arrest warrant
that implicated al-Mashhadani in terrorist activity related to
al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
The political
context of this latest crackdown offers important clues to the
motivations and mindset of Maliki and his government. To defang
his Shi‘i rivals in the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, Maliki employed
carrot-and-stick tactics. In the spring and summer of 2008, Maliki
ordered a series of military actions that targeted Jaysh al-Mahdi,
the Sadrist militia, including the March offensive in Basra,
the April-May assault on Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of
the Sadrists, and a June operation in Maysan province. These
operations resulted in the detention of scores of Sadrist fighters
and leaders, and weakened the military capacity of Jaysh al-Mahdi.
Yet following the January 2009 provincial elections, which saw
the Sadrists achieve respectable results throughout the south,
the prime minister’s electoral list is now in negotiations with
them over the makeup of provincial coalitions. Maliki’s approach
to the Sadrists could provide a rough sketch of the government’s
plan for extending its writ and corralling the Awakenings. With
Sadrists engaged in alliance politics and simultaneously pleading
for the release of their party colleagues who remain in jail,
Maliki appears confident that his security apparatus is able
to bend the will of his political adversaries to reshape the
country’s political dynamics.
This episode follows the near completion
of the transfer of the sahwat to Iraqi government oversight
and control (save for 10,000 militiamen in Salah al-Din province)
and the government is now responsible for the monthly payments
of the militiamen. It indicates that Maliki is bent on asserting
authority over these groups, with no tolerance for open dissent
over government treatment. Maliki’s actions in Baghdad appear
to be part of a strategy to cement the fragmentation and political
weakness of the councils in “mixed” areas of the country; they
also appear to be premised on the government’s belief that the
lack of centralized coordination among the sahwat and
the fragmented state of Sunni Arab politics will allow an assertion
of political control through force without triggering widespread
reversion to insurgency.
The lack of a broad top-down structure spanning
the various provinces and the multiplicity of local actors have
likely created a sense of confidence that the patchwork set of
agreements struck with the US military has hampered the groups’
ability to respond in a collective fashion and deterred widespread
reprisals by disenfranchised militiamen. The acquiescence of
these groups and the lack of sharp reaction to similar repression
in Diyala have likely been interpreted by the government as a
sign that the sahwat are exhausted by the years of insurgency,
as well as the violent conflict with al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,
which has increasingly set its sights on the Sunni Arab militias.
The biometric and census data gathered by the US military as
a precondition for getting on the US payroll could also provide
the Iraqi government with a tool to use against the erstwhile
rebels should US forces share the information. The data “provides
a useful enemies list to the government of Iraq, if they chose
to use it,” commented Colin Kahl, now a deputy assistant secretary
at Obama’s Pentagon, in the summer of 2008.[6]
At the same time, the government has tempered
the clear sectarian overtones of the crackdown and advanced the
nationalist gambit it used to such effect in the January provincial
elections. It has done this through wide-ranging political discussions
with Sunni Arab political parties it considers more palatable,
such as the Iraqi National Project List led by Salih al-Mutlaq,
and by courting leaders from the Anbar Awakening, the original sahwa that
soon spawned imitators across the country. (Of course, the Anbaris,
hailing from the large province west of Baghdad that is home
to Falluja and Ramadi, were also some of the original insurgents.)
Broadly speaking, the Anbar groups are perceived in a different
light than those in “mixed” areas of the country due to their
reliance on tribal structures, the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab
population of the province and the political power they have
accrued through provincial elections. Additionally, being enmeshed
in the machinery of provincial governance will endow the winners
among the Anbaris with the ability to placate their tribal and
other allies through the provision of public-sector employment
and the awarding of government contracts. The willingness of
Maliki to consider political alliances with these groups has
established the limited terms of reference for future engagement
and has sent a message to all other branches of the Awakenings
that, without a strong political grounding on the government’s
terms, they have no future in Iraq.
In a recent appearance on al-Jazeera explaining
the government’s position on the arrest of al-Mashhadani, Defense
Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Muhammad al-‘Askari differentiated
among the sahwat and posited that the Anbar branch is
a reaction to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and a model of those groups
intent on national reconciliation. By contrast, al-‘Askari described
the “other branch…in Baghdad, Diyala, Ninewa” as harboring an
ulterior motive -- the desire to take advantage of incorporation
into the security apparatus in order to assist those still intent
upon carrying out guerrilla operations. Similarly, Iraqi Vice
President ‘Adil ‘Abd al-Mahdi, a member of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq (ISCI), noted that the groups in Anbar “allowed
us to expel al-Qaeda out of al-Anbar, and for that reason they
received the support of the government and the Iraqi people.”
He went on to distinguish between the “original sahwat”
and those groups that “claim to be part of the forces of the sahwat but
wait for the appropriate time to launch their attacks.”[7]
Maliki’s
Aspirations
Ned Parker,
a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in Baghdad,
has described the prime minister’s calculated repression of Sunni
Arabs among the Awakenings who are former insurgent leaders and
noted that Maliki has also sought to curb the influence of his
most powerful Shi‘i rivals, ISCI, through the establishment of
independent bases of support throughout the south. The picture
that emerges is that of a highly sectarian leader with aspirations
for centralized leadership that have required small steps toward
cross-sectarianism and corresponding moves against his co-religionists.[8] By
moving against some Sunni groups while negotiating with others,
Maliki has further consolidated his grip on power, but left himself
open to criticism from Shi‘i Islamists who are more doctrinaire.
Concerned with their own diminished status and the possibility
of government action targeting their members, these Shi‘i players
have actively sought to hinder cross-sectarian politics and have
distorted Maliki’s limited efforts at coopting Sunni Arab political
actors. This is a crucial point, as Maliki’s nationalist posturing
has yet to provide him with a truly cross-sectarian voting constituency
and his electoral base remains overwhelmingly centered within
the Shi‘i communities of Iraq.
Since the provincial
elections, al-Maliki has openly discussed the possibility of
allowing the re-entry of select Baathists into the political
process.[9] He
has also made public overtures to al-Mutlaq to explore the formation
of provincial coalitions.[10] Both
of these steps were greeted with suspicion by the Sadrists and
ISCI, which remains Maliki’s primary Shi‘i rival for dominance
in Baghdad and the southern provinces even after its electoral
setbacks in January. Writing at his website historiae.org, the
analyst Reidar Visser notes that following the elections, ISCI
“is employing its favorite weapon, anti-Baathism, to try to recover
some of the ground it lost.” In a defensive reaction, Maliki
was forced to express his vociferous opposition to any and all
discussions regarding the rehabilitation of the Baath, and his
office released an official statement that emphasized that the
“disbanded Baath party” could not legally participate in the
political process.[11] He
has more recently described those who support the party’s participation
in the political life of Iraq as “delusional and ignorant.”[12] Thus the sequence of events suggests that
the crackdown and the accusation that al-Mashhadani was engaged
in Baathist political activity served the additional purpose
of shielding the government from more strident criticism among
other Shi‘i politicians and quelling any doubts that might have
arisen among the Shi‘i populace.
None of the foregoing is meant to downplay
Maliki’s continuing sectarian concerns regarding the Awakening
Councils and the potential dangers of this overall course. The
unwillingness of Maliki’s government to integrate sizable numbers
from these groups into the security forces or provide them with
reasonable civilian employment continues to cast a shadow over
the general downturn in violence since mid-2007.
With the dramatic decline in the price of
oil and the slashing of the budget for 2009, the prospects for
integrating significant numbers of the sahwat into the
security forces or otherwise accommodating them look bleak. To
date, while the actual numbers are contested and public pronouncements
by the government have varied, recent estimates suggest that
only 5,000 of these individuals have been formally inducted into
the security forces.[13] Furthermore, the outbreak of
hostilities following al-Mashhadani’s arrest is still seen by
many Sunnis in sectarian terms. A stepped-up and more comprehensive
campaign against the sahwat could still trigger a broader
sense of Sunni Arab grievance and a series of uncoordinated reactions
that would catalyze a larger outbreak of destabilizing sectarian
violence.
The Stakes
Understanding
this backdrop is particularly important because the ability of
the United States and its military forces to affect the trajectory
of political accommodation and reconciliation has diminished.
Some commentators have rightly pointed out that these actions
have placed US troops at odds with their former Sunni allies.[14] Recalling
the discussion surrounding the negotiations of the US-Iraqi status
of forces agreement, Col. Peter Mansoor, Gen. David Petraeus’
executive officer, worried that the agreement “would put US forces
into a position where they could not intervene to stop the government
of Iraq from attacking the Sons of Iraq. If the Iraqi Security
Forces needed help once engaged against the Sons of Iraq, US
forces could be drawn into the fight against the very people
who helped us turn the war around.”[15] At the same time, the direct involvement of
US forces in support of the arrest of al-Mashhadani highlights
the Maliki government’s continued reliance on the US military
for logistics and air support and still represents the most potent
form of leverage that US policymakers could exploit, should they
wish to halt the spiral before it acquires momentum.
While the Obama
administration remains solicitous of the stability of the Maliki
government, US support for Iraqi military operations cannot be
unconditional if the stated strategic goal of withdrawal is not
to be compromised. Many of the Maliki government’s operations
would not be feasible without US support or, if they were undertaken
without such support, could only be successful at a much higher
cost in casualties and reputation. If the US military simply
enforces the decisions made by Maliki to consolidate his power
against perceived enemies, the premier will merely be emboldened
to take bigger and bigger risks. In instances such as the al-Mashhadani
arrest, when US forces are deployed to rein in specific militia
leaders, their cooperation risks making a mockery of Maliki’s
repeated assurances of integration into the security forces or
other public-sector employment.
It is entirely
possible that al-Mashhadani is fully guilty of the charges against
him -- this would hardly be surprising given the background and
history of the sahwat and many of their individual members.
Targeting the worst of this lot is understandable, and perhaps
desirable, from the perspective of the US and its Iraqi allies
in the Green Zone, and when limited in scope is unlikely to spark
Sunni Arab outrage that would provoke a reversion to full-scale
insurgency. But the United States remains at risk of being enlisted
as a proxy as the Shi‘i-dominated government dictates terms of
surrender in an unfinished sectarian civil war. Litigating the
rights and wrongs of the civil war through wholesale repression
of the sahwat would constitute a form of victor’s justice
-- with no regard for the excesses and abuses carried out under
government aegis or with government connivance. And it would
increase the chances, already too high, that Iraqi civilians
will be exposed to another and perhaps even bloodier round of
internecine fighting.
Endnotes
[1] See,
for instance, David Kilcullen, “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,” Small
Wars Journal, August 29, 2007.
[2] See,
for instance, John A. McCary, “The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance
of Incentives,” Washington Quarterly (January 2009).
[3] New
York Times, August 21, 2008.
[4] BBC
News, February 4, 2008.
[5] The
government has vowed on numerous occasions to integrate 20 percent
of the militiamen into the Iraqi security forces. ‘Ali al-Dabbagh,
the prime minister’s official spokesman, explicitly stated that
the remaining 80 percent of the fighters will be given public-sector
employment. Aswat al-‘Iraq, April 14, 2009. [Arabic]
[6] Noah
Shachtman, “Could Iris Scans Stop a New Iraq Insurgency?” Wired,
August 26, 2008.
[7] Al-Zaman (Baghdad),
April 14, 2009. [Arabic]
[8] Ned
Parker, “Machiavelli in Mesopotamia: Nouri al-Maliki Builds the
Body Politic,” World Policy Journal (Spring 2009).
[9] Guardian,
March 7, 2009.
[10]Anthony
Shadid, “New Alliances In Iraq Cross Sectarian Lines,” Washington
Post, March 20, 2009.
[11] See
the official statement from Office of the Prime Minister, March
19, 2009, available online at http://www.pmo.iq/index/03-866.htm.
[Arabic]
[12] Aswat
al-‘Iraq, April 12, 2009. [Arabic]
[13] Los
Angeles Times, March 30, 2009.
[14] Gareth
Porter, “Al-Maliki Draws US Troops Into Crackdown on Sunnis,”
Inter Press Service, April 1, 2009.
[15] Quoted
by journalist Thomas E. Ricks at his blog on the Foreign Policy website:
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/31/iraq_the_unraveling_ii.
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