Bad news about Iraq is a daily occurrence. But the news that a militant group has taken control of Iraq’s second-largest city has repercussions far beyond its borders. On Tuesday, fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – the same group that has made gains across the border in Syria – took over Mosul, pushing out Iraqi soldiers.
The fact that a militant group – with an estimated 1,300 fighters inside the city – was able to unseat soldiers of the national army speaks volumes about the threat they pose. ISIL is an extremist, violent and religiously intolerant group. Those who have lived under their ideology, whether in Syria’s north-eastern city of Raqqa or in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, can testify to their brutality. In that may be a way forward for Iraq.
The list of reasons, and woes, that have led to this state of affairs is long. The destabilisation of Iraq after the US invasion is a big factor. The influence of Iran in Iraq’s reconstruction is another. The civil war in Syria is a third. Yet the main cause has to be Iraq’s internal politics, especially the use of sectarian politics by prime minister Nouri Al Maliki. It was those politics that alienated Sunnis in the western part of Iraq, allowing an opening that was exploited by militant groups in Anbar province at the beginning of this year. Indeed that flashpoint is still unresolved. Hundreds of thousands have fled from that region, the Iraqi army has moved and yet, five months on, ISIL is still on the ground in parts of Anbar province. The government of Mr Maliki clearly does not have the political will or military tools to unseat ISIL in one region. It is difficult to see how it can do so on two fronts.
A new policy is needed. Better for Mr Maliki to seek a new alliance between his Shia-led government and the majority Sunnis in the western provinces – a new Sahwa, or “Awakening”, such as the one that pushed out militants in 2006.
Such an alliance will be politically costly. Sunnis across Iraq already distrust Mr Maliki. They will not readily ally with his troops without significant political concessions – concessions that Mr Maliki, still putting together a governing coalition after April’s elections, may be unwilling to make.
Yet he must, and the United States and regional countries should push him to do so. ISIL poses a threat not merely to Iraq and Syria, but to the entire region, including the Gulf. The politics of Iraq and Syria may have caused this opening for ISIL, but the whole Middle East will feel its effects if it is not swiftly contained.
