U.S. Can't Lead From Behind in Iraq
Mar 9, 2015 2:58 PM EDT
By The Editors
As the U.S. stands aside while Iran-backed militiamen lead the fight to recapture the Iraqi town of Tikrit, it's hard to know if it would be worse for them to win this battle against Islamic State or to lose. What is clear is that the U.S. and its allies should be playing a stronger role in the war against Islamic State to keep Iraq from polarizing.
If the militias do retake Tikrit and then victimize Sunni civilians as they have done in other areas, it will become even harder to persuade Sunni Arabs to rise up against Islamic State or to hold Iraq's fragments together. And even if the miltias behave, their victory may lead to the "Hezbollahization" of Iraq, a process in which Iran's militia allies take over the nation's security services and central government -- much as Hezbollah did in Lebanon.
No wonder General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Baghdad this weekend to find out what Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is thinking. As Dempsey told reporters on the flight: “The important thing about this operation in Tikrit in my view is less about how the military aspect of it goes and more about what follows.”
There is no neat solution here or perfect outcome for Iraq. The U.S. strategy of rebuilding an integrated Iraqi army of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- and bringing sectarian militias under a joint command -- is the best available. Unfortunately, though, as the campaign for Tikrit shows, the opposite is happening: Shiite militias, under the guidance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, control the Iraqi army.
To realize its vision of a multisectarian, multiethnic Iraqi military, the U.S. will have to demonstrate that it is the more effective and reliable security partner for Iraq's government. That can't mean pouring combat troops back into Baghdad, something the White House ruled out again in the draft Authorization for Use of Military Force it submitted to Congress last month. But it doesn't need to.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-09/u-s-can-t-lead-from-behind-in-iraq
