Michael Knights, an Iraq expert and Lafer fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy speaks to Justin Vela about US policy in the Middle East.
* This transcript has been lightly edited
The National: There are calls are being made for the United States to intervene in Iraq to fight terrorists, militants from the Islamic State who have taken over large parts of the country. Yet, if the US chooses to become involved military it risks being perceived as backing Iraq’s Shiite prime minister Nouri Al Maliki and the various Shiite militias prepared to fight the Sunni insurgents. Can you describe some of the thinking that is probably taking place is Washington about how much to become involved right now?
Knights: All across the world, when the US detects a major Salafi terrorist movement like the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Shams, as it was called until recently, it tends to strike that movement. If that’s in Yemen or if it’s in the Sahara desert or if it’s in Afghanistan, Pakistan. Any of these places, except for one. One place where it can get away with pretty much anything is the Iraq-Syria area.
And the reason for that, as you point out, is because the US does not want to get dragged into a quagmire, a major conflict, as a combatant. On the other hand, there are probably ways that the US can undertake discrete counterterrorism operations in the Iraq-Syria area, without getting drawn into the broader conflict.
People who oppose US military intervention will say that’s easier said than done. And they are right. It would require discipline and focus for the US to undertake discrete counterterrorism operations without becoming involved in the broader civil war like conditions that we see in Iraq. But that’s the challenge for the US right now.
I imagine that the way to focus on this more discrete counter-terrorism challenge is for the US to stay away from operations in and Iraq Baghdad and the cross-sectarian areas around the Iraqi capital, where both Sunni and Shia live very closely meshed together. And instead for the US to focus any military intervention it does on the more open desert areas in the Iraq-Syria border area and in areas where the Islamic State are openly controlling affairs.
The National: Does Iraq hold potential for the US to cooperate with Iran or is it just increasing tensions between the two countries? Both countries have drones flying over Iraq. I’ve been wondering what happens if a US drone collides with an Iranian drone. Who cleans up that mess?
Knights: Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in Iraq and I remember seeing Iranian drones flying over both Basra and Diyala Province in the past. So it’s not a new phenomenon that these two countries are essentially sharing the military adviser mission. That’s always been the case actually. The Iranians and the US have always both put trainers in. They’ve also both put drones and technical intelligence collection into Iraq right way back to 2003. If two drones hit each other, it’s like two flies bumping into each other. It’s a very unlikely thing to happen. So I suspect both sides would just wash their hands of it and say ‘Shucks, we lost another two drones.’
But the broader point here is whether this could bring the US and Iran closer together. Or whether this could be another source of irritation between the two.
We had a small window in mid-June where the US and the Iranians were both stressing the importance of defeating ISIS in Iraq. Where they were both offering significant security assistance to the Maliki government, and where there was a briefly some talk even from US congressional leaders about this being something that the US and the Iranians could coordinate on.
By coordination what they really meant was deconfliction. Not getting in each other’s ways. And both providing assistance to the Iraqi government. And particularly pushing the political process in the same direction. In other words, that the politics in Iraq need to align before any formal security offensive can restore government control to northern Iraq. Unless the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shia are on-board, then no amount of military operations can restore the country back into the shape it was before June. And that’s something the US and the Iranians do agree on. And they have both pushed in the direction of removing prime minister Nouri Al Maliki.
However, when it comes to security assistance to Iraq, the US and the Iranians are pushing in very different directions really. It looks like the start point might be the same, but the end points are very different.
The US is pushing for an integrated political military approach that draws the Sunnis back into power sharing in Iraq and that makes maximum use of intelligence and co-option and targeted use of force. The Iranians are pushing for the Syria solution, which is extensive use of artillery, air power, extensive use of Shia militias and to smash and crush the Sunni insurgency.
So, I’ve detected in the weeks after the uprising in Iraq that the US and the Iranians are have actually started to move in very different directions.
The National: And does Maliki have a chance to stay in power? Will he be able to find the support from other Shiite leaders in Iraq in order to remain as prime minister?
Knights: Maliki does stand a very high chance of being removed. I’d say maybe 80 per cent plus chance of being removed during this crisis. Because the other Shia factions recognise, and the Iranians, I think, and the Shia religious establishment in Najaf, recognise that the ascendancy of the Shia is under threat. Because his guys have not just delivered. Because he uses the wrong generals. Because he wants to concentrate power on himself and spends most of his time thinking about how to keep himself in power, not how to necessarily serve the Shia’s overall interests in Iraq.
The National: Finally, now that the US is sending more troops to Iraq, flying drones over the country, and preparing to send more money to moderate rebels fighting in Syria, do you see this as the beginning of the US getting more widely involved military in the Middle East again? Do you think there will be more of a push to stay in the region?
Knights: I do this as being the start of a new wave of US military activism in the Middle East. Of course, the Obama administration wanted to banish the Middle East to the past. And many US administrations have wanted the same thing for the same good reasons. The Middle East does need a moderating influence. And the US has undertaken the role of honest broker in many Middle Eastern conflicts. The invasion of Iraq was a game changing event, but that doesn’t mean that the US has no role in the Middle East going forward. It means what reasonable analysts I think have concluded is any intervention the US makes in the Middle East needs to be carefully thought out and there needs to be an exit plan.
The US is now going to be strongly involved in Iraq as a counter-terrorism partner, in the same way that it has been strongly involved in Yemen as a counterterrorism partner, or in Ethiopia, or in a number of other locations around the region. That makes sense because really the good war that president Obama always wanted to fight was the war against Al Qaeda and its affiliate movements. When that war shifted in part from Afghanistan/Pakistan to Yemen he undertook greater numbers of military operations and greater security assistance to the Yemeni government. And this is what we are seeing in Iraq now.
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