A contrarian article going to the roots of the current struggled by the armed Jihadists-ISIS...It explains the reasons for the strife in Iraq involving the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds
Iraq and the Islamic State
Engaging the enemy
http://www.economist.com/news/brief...ill-not-be?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/engagingtheenemy
Mr Maliki, prime minister since 2006, has always had sectarian and authoritarian tendencies. They were given freer rein after the Americans left in 2011. He kicked Sunnis out of the security forces, often in the name of “debaathification”. As discontent grew, he cracked down disproportionately: at a peaceful protest in the Sunni town of Hawija in April 2013 the security forces killed 50. After Falluja, a Sunni-majority city in eastern Anbar province, was taken over by rebels in December 2013, the army shelled it, and the security forces mounted a countrywide programme of mass arrests.
Awaken, again
The Kurds have grievances against Mr Maliki too. The government has refused to send Kurdistan its part of the national budget. In response the Kurds have started to export oil from fields under their control and keep the proceeds for themselves. Although the government in Baghdad resumed military co-operation with the Kurds when IS turned north, carrying out air strikes and ferrying weaponry to the Kurds, it was too little too late to make up for the bad blood. By early August even many of the MPs in Mr Maliki’s Shia State of Law coalition realised Iraq would only continue to fray if he remained in power. Mr Maliki’s removal thus became perhaps the only goal shared by Iraqis across all the country’s divides.
On August 10th Fouad Masum, Iraq’s newly installed Kurdish president (and the man who supervised Mr Maliki’s master’s dissertation in Arabic language and literature in Erbil) appointed Haider al-Abadi to the post of prime minister, which had been vacant since the May elections. Mr Abadi is viewed by Iraqis as less divisive than Mr Maliki—but that is a low bar. It hardly bodes well that the new prime minister is a man from the same party as Mr Maliki and with a similar outlook, subject to similar Iranian influence and hemmed in by the same hollowed-out institutions and acrimonious politicking. He now has 30 days to form a cabinet.
Creating a government sufficiently inclusive to win back the trust of Sunnis, and thus undermine IS, will be no easy task. Confidence-building measures such as releasing Sunni prisoners would probably be blocked by Shia parties while the IS emergency continues. Other demands such as incorporating Sunnis back into the security forces, most likely by creating a force in the Sunni areas nominally under central command, would take months if not years. Discussions on creating a more federal Iraq that devolves more power are likely to be necessary. Until the Sunnis are persuaded that such reforms offer a better alternative, IS will remain “an insurance policy”, says Ramzy Mardini, a visiting scholar at the Atlantic Council, a Washington, DC-based think-tank.
Iraq and the Islamic State
Engaging the enemy
http://www.economist.com/news/brief...ill-not-be?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/engagingtheenemy
Mr Maliki, prime minister since 2006, has always had sectarian and authoritarian tendencies. They were given freer rein after the Americans left in 2011. He kicked Sunnis out of the security forces, often in the name of “debaathification”. As discontent grew, he cracked down disproportionately: at a peaceful protest in the Sunni town of Hawija in April 2013 the security forces killed 50. After Falluja, a Sunni-majority city in eastern Anbar province, was taken over by rebels in December 2013, the army shelled it, and the security forces mounted a countrywide programme of mass arrests.
Awaken, again
The Kurds have grievances against Mr Maliki too. The government has refused to send Kurdistan its part of the national budget. In response the Kurds have started to export oil from fields under their control and keep the proceeds for themselves. Although the government in Baghdad resumed military co-operation with the Kurds when IS turned north, carrying out air strikes and ferrying weaponry to the Kurds, it was too little too late to make up for the bad blood. By early August even many of the MPs in Mr Maliki’s Shia State of Law coalition realised Iraq would only continue to fray if he remained in power. Mr Maliki’s removal thus became perhaps the only goal shared by Iraqis across all the country’s divides.
On August 10th Fouad Masum, Iraq’s newly installed Kurdish president (and the man who supervised Mr Maliki’s master’s dissertation in Arabic language and literature in Erbil) appointed Haider al-Abadi to the post of prime minister, which had been vacant since the May elections. Mr Abadi is viewed by Iraqis as less divisive than Mr Maliki—but that is a low bar. It hardly bodes well that the new prime minister is a man from the same party as Mr Maliki and with a similar outlook, subject to similar Iranian influence and hemmed in by the same hollowed-out institutions and acrimonious politicking. He now has 30 days to form a cabinet.
Creating a government sufficiently inclusive to win back the trust of Sunnis, and thus undermine IS, will be no easy task. Confidence-building measures such as releasing Sunni prisoners would probably be blocked by Shia parties while the IS emergency continues. Other demands such as incorporating Sunnis back into the security forces, most likely by creating a force in the Sunni areas nominally under central command, would take months if not years. Discussions on creating a more federal Iraq that devolves more power are likely to be necessary. Until the Sunnis are persuaded that such reforms offer a better alternative, IS will remain “an insurance policy”, says Ramzy Mardini, a visiting scholar at the Atlantic Council, a Washington, DC-based think-tank.
