America Tries to Curb the Jihadi Fever in Iraq

Two years after pulling out, the United States announced a new shipment of drones and Hellfire missiles.

To see the black flag of al-Qaida draped on the buildings of Fallujah is quite a shock for America. Two years after leaving Iraq, the country has not forgotten the blood spilled by its own men to wipe out the insurrection in this strategic Sunni village that lies 60 kilometers from Baghdad in Anbar province. Today the insurgents are returning under the banner of the Sunni jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, crushing the facade of stability that the U.S. military built from fighting in Iraq during the surge of 2007-2009. It confirmed, as if it were necessary, the hubris of intervening in Iraq and the naivete of Barack Obama’s diagnosis of “the [receding] tide of war” he made when announcing the complete withdrawal in 2011.

“What is happening shows the absurdity of our efforts. We covered our retreat with the surge, promoting ethnic cleansing in favor of Shiites in order to achieve some stability, but the sectarian fractures have never disappeared. What happened is the continuation of anarchy and civil war we caused by intervening,” explains Chas Freeman, a former ambassador and specialist in the Middle East. The situation is made that much more volatile in that it is directly tied to the sectarian violence feeding the Syrian civil war. “The whole regional system put in place by the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 is about to be smashed to pieces. America cannot do anything else,” added the very pessimistic former diplomat.*

Prolonged conflict in Syria and the specter of a new civil war in Iraq are real worries for an America that wonders what type of policy it must have in a Middle East spreading instability to Africa, Turkey and potentially Europe, which exports battalions of Muslim jihadis to Syria.

“We are very, very concerned,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement on Sunday, emphasizing that America had no intention of sending troops to Iraq. Vice President Joe Biden, who has been in charge of the issue throughout Obama’s presidency, had some intense conversations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, especially pressing him to work with Sunni tribes in Anbar province to expel the legions of al-Qaida from their towns. “We’re working closely with the Iraqis to develop a holistic strategy to isolate the al-Qaida affiliated groups,” explained Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren.

The Americans, who remain the top military partner in Iraq, have also announced their intention to deliver drones and Hellfire missiles to Baghdad. But many experts doubt the effectiveness of such weapons without a sufficient aerial fleet. The U.S. Congress has in effect blocked the export of F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, fearing that the Iraqi army will use them to punish the Sunni minority. A number of observers agree that such deliveries would serve to cover American powerlessness.

“The success of the insurgents is tied to the refusal of al-Maliki to include the Sunni minority in the political process. [The Sunnis] are systematically cracked down on and alienated by a Shiite government becoming more and more dictatorial,” notes Chas Freeman, who thinks that American weapons would only “aggravate things.” “What we must do is be a mediator between Shiites and Sunnis and the Americans aren’t fit for playing that role, no more than the Europeans. I only see the Russians, but do they even want to?”* Additionally, Kenneth Pollack from the Brookings Institute confirmed that arms shipments “will encourage Maliki to believe there is a military solution to this problem, and that is what perpetuates civil wars.”

Quick to politicize everything, the Republicans stated that Obama should have left a contingent [of troops] in Baghdad to maintain breathing room. But behind these critiques, which without a doubt have some truth, the general sentiment being expressed by the U.S. foreign policy community is that of hesitation and impotence. After having fought for ten years in the sands of Iraq, America is asking itself if it still has a role to play in a region where it is not even taken especially seriously. “Frankly, the locals are the forces that count, with the example of Iraq illustrating the total failure of Western policy in the Middle East,” notes Freeman.* Some think the situation is not that serious, noting decreased Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil and the pivot to Asia. But the most clear-sighted understand that the conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq must be taken seriously. “Let’s be clear,” summarizes Wilson Center Vice President David Aaron Miller, “We are stuck in a region that we cannot leave and we cannot fix.”

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.