It will take more than military force to save Iraq

Perhaps the most shocking element of the seizure of huge swathes of Syria and Iraq by militants is the sheer speed at which it was carried out. A group called ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or Levant) has, over the last year, made major gains of territory across eastern and northern Syria and western and northern Iraq.

On 10th June, the group won its biggest strategic victory yet, capturing Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, and most of the surrounding province of Niniveh. The following day, it advanced south towards Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, taking other towns on the way. There were reports of troops abandoning their posts and fleeing, despite the fact that they far outnumbered the militants. If nothing else, this certainly undermined the US claim to have left behind a well-trained, unified military when they pulled out of the country in 2011.

Indeed, a decade after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the country clearly remains fragile and chaotic. So how was ISIS able to so effectively seize control of these areas? The group has around 6000 fighters in Iraq and between 3000 and 5000 in Syria, according to some reports – far less than the Iraqi army.

Of course, the takeover of Mosul did not come out of nowhere. Since the start of the year, ISIS has captured and held Falluja, taken over parts of Ramadi (the capital of the mainly Sunni Anbar province) and battled for Samarra, a city north of Baghdad where one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines is situated. There has also been a steady stream of terrorist attacks on Baghdad.

The current situation cannot be understood without the context of ongoing sectarian tensions in Iraq, between the three main groups – Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias. The Iraqi government, led by Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has been engaged in a months-long standoff with the Sunni minority. Sunni tribes, particularly in Anbar province, have been protesting about what they say is Maliki’s pro-Shia bias. He has cracked down hard on the protests, in Ramadi and Falluja, despite the fact the protests were initially peaceful. He justified this violent response by citing concern about terrorists in the midst of the protesters. Such heavy-handedness has, no doubt, played a role in worsening tension. In fact, some Sunni tribes do not see the Mosul takeover as a militant occupation, but as another chapter in the sectarian struggle between Sunni and Shia. This means that even if they do not support the extreme ideology of ISIS, they have not opposed the group’s sweep across the country. According to some reports, former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party were among those who seized Tikrit.

This is dangerously short-sighted, as past example shows that Sunnis are not spared suffering when ISIS takes over a particular area. However, it is also understandable. Maliki has purged Sunnis from government and disbanded the Sahwa militia, a largely tribal Sunni force that was encouraged by the US to fight ISIS some years ago. Maliki did not keep a promise to integrate members of this militia into the regular army, leaving former members disillusioned. In a report on the takeovers, the Economist suggests that many Sunnis – including former Ba’athists loyal to Saddam, and even former Sahwa members (who previously opposed ISIS) – may have joined ISIS feeling that they would never get fair treatment or representation from the government.

Before being ousted by the US, Saddam did everything he could to exacerbate and deepen these sectarian tensions, working on the principle of divide and conquer. After the US-led invasion in 2003, these tensions erupted into a bloody civil war in 2006-7. Clearly, the legacy of all these events is still alive and well today, providing fertile ground for extremism and instability to grow.

Given that the US and its allies bear at least some responsibility for the fragile state of Iraq, the question of what the west should do to respond to the current crisis is a complicated one. As the recent debate over intervention in Syria showed, there is little appetite among the public in the US or the UK for military action. But, of course, the potential security threat of an extremist group seizing control of a state is too high for these states to take no action at all. The White House has reassured Iraq that it will assist the army. A senior official has said that President Barack Obama is considering American airstrikes against militant groups. If this goes ahead, it would be a symbolically important step, returning to combat two and a half years after pulling out the last US troops from Iraq.

However, as ISIS – which has imposed taxes and its own laws on the territories it has taken over, on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border – looks ever more like it is achieving its aim of creating an extremist caliphate state, it seems that western powers will see little option but to intervene in some way. This could reverse the gains made by ISIS, but, as the consistent resurgence of tension and insurgency in Iraq has shown, it will take more than military force to heal the scars of the past.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.