tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/ramadi-17206/articlesRamadi – The Conversation2017-01-31T02:23:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721662017-01-31T02:23:51Z2017-01-31T02:23:51ZWhat’s gone wrong in the seven countries Trump included in his ban? Essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155002/original/image-20170131-3265-8cfnjt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Syrian children remove rubble Aleppo, Syria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Hassan Ammar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories related to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.</em></p>
<p>Last week, President Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning citizens from seven countries from entering the U.S. and indefinitely banning Syrian refugees.</p>
<p>The stated aim of <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/29/protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states">the order</a> is to ensure the U.S. doesn’t allow terrorists into the country. </p>
<p>Why did the Trump administration single out these seven countries? As many commentators have pointed out, they are all majority Muslim. Another commonality is war.</p>
<h2>Iraq and Syria</h2>
<p>The destabilizing force of the militant organization Islamic State (IS or ISIS) has been especially strong in Iraq and Syria. In June 2014, IS shook the world by overrunning the Iraqi city of Mosul. Taking advantage of political weaknesses and ethic division in Iraq and neighboring Syria, IS grew rapidly to the point where 10 million people lived under its power, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034">according to the BBC</a>.</p>
<p>The Syrian government and Russia and – acting separately – a U.S.-led coalition pushed back against IS. They dropped tens of thousands of airstrikes that weakened IS and leveled Syrian cities. By late October 2016, IS had been diminished to the point that University of California professor James L. Gelvin considered <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-islamic-state-finished-five-possible-scenarios-67676">five possible scenerios</a> for its demise.</p>
<p>But the violence displaced more than three million Iraqis in the span of 18 months prior to the U.S. presidential election. This left humanitarian aid agencies struggling to meet the demand for assistance, wrote Thomas Acaro of Elon University in November. His <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-iraq-and-syria-humanitarian-aid-workers-struggle-within-a-strained-system-67604">survey of international aid workers</a> revealed stress in the system:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A lack of safety is an increasingly palpable fact of life. They report seeing friends and colleagues get raped, kidnapped and, yes, even beheaded.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Airstrikes in November 2016 also destroyed the two largest hospitals in the Syrian city of Aleppo. M. Zaher Sahloul, a physician and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, traveled there as a volunteer and wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-aleppos-medical-nightmare-and-why-we-must-act-67434">the medical nightmare affecting thousands of civilians</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Physicians for Human Rights has recorded 382 attacks on medical facilities, of which 344 were carried out by the regime and Russia; they were also responsible for the deaths of 703 of the 757 medical personnel killed in the war so far. Most of Aleppo’s doctors have left.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Libya</h2>
<p>After Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown by a militia-led uprising in 2011, the U.S. and other Western countries supported efforts to elect a new, democratic government. By February of 2015, the U.S. was bombing parts of Libya in an effort to extinguish IS strongholds in the North African country. <a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-and-isis-what-happened-37801">What went wrong</a>? Mieczyslaw Boduszynski,
a former U.S. diplomat who worked in Libya during the post-Gadhafi transition, explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Over time, the vast unguarded borders and lawlessness of post-Gadhafi Libya provided the ideal environment for jihadists of various stripes to set up bases. For IS, Libya provide[d] an opportunity not only to extend the caliphate, but to do so far away from coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Iran</h2>
<p>While threatened by the spread of IS in neighboring Iraq, Iran’s government celebrated a victory in 2015 when the the Obama administration and five other countries agreed to lift sanctions against Iran in return for the country’s voluntary curbing of its nuclear ability. </p>
<p>Scholars at Indiana University, Bloomington <a href="https://theconversation.com/money-trumps-fear-in-reactions-to-wests-nuclear-accord-with-iran-44749">wrote</a>: “As sanctions fall away, Iran should rise swiftly back into the major leagues, propelled by larger energy exports that could top $100 billion a year, the release of hitherto frozen funds and a highly educated and motivated workforce.”</p>
<p>But the deal may have been short-lived. As David Mednicoff of University of Massachusetts Amherst <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-and-tillerson-face-the-middle-east-68695">observed</a>, “Trump has … promised to renegotiate the multilateral treaty that stopped Iran’s move toward nuclear weapons.”</p>
<p>Mednicoff also noted another potential source of instability: Iran’s relationships in the region.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Arab Gulf states frequently express anxiety around Iran’s power. They see Iran as a threat to their countries’ autonomy and to the majority Sunni Islam that differs from the assertive minority Shi’ism central to Iran’s political ideology.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Yemen</h2>
<p>Civil war has been raging for nearly two years in Yemen. The U.N. has called the conflict a “major calamity.” </p>
<p>Vincent Durac of the University College Dublin <a href="https://theconversation.com/yemen-a-calamity-at-the-end-of-the-arabian-peninsula-67954">traces the origins of the war</a> to 2011 when a rebellion unseated the country’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose party had dominated the country’s political life since Yemeni unification in 1990. But what really triggered the conflict was the years of failed transitional negotiations that followed Saleh’s ousting.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“More than 10,000 people have lost their lives, while more than 20 million (of a total population of some 27 million) are in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 3 million people are internally displaced, while hundreds of thousands have fled the country altogether. There are reports of looming famine as the conflict destroys food production in the country.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Somalia and Sudan</h2>
<p>Robert Rotberg of Harvard’s Kennedy School suggested another reason why IS may have asserted control in northern African countries. “Terrorists are in it as much for the loot as for the ideology,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-little-understood-connection-between-islamic-terror-and-drug-profits-53602">he wrote</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“ISIS- and al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa prosper by trafficking drugs across the Sahara and by offering "protection” to smugglers who have long been trading illicit goods throughout the continent. Although Westerners tend to think of these groups as driven by ideology, new recruits may be more attracted by opportunities to make money.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Simon Reich of Rutgers, Newark <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-world-war-three-begun-55201">cautions that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“we may have been entering a new form of global war for the last three decades – in slow motion. This war is similar in some respects to prior incarnations, and significantly different in others. First, all wars have a geographic fulcrum. This one is in the Middle East and North Africa. Its epicenter spreads from Libya and Egypt to the Persian Gulf and Turkey.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This roundup from our archives explains some of the major conflicts unfolding in the seven countries singled out by Trump’s executive order.Emily Costello, Director of Collaborations + Local News, The Conversation USDanielle Douez, Associate Editor, Politics + SocietyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526172015-12-23T12:25:04Z2015-12-23T12:25:04ZIraq’s battle for Ramadi isn’t just about defeating Islamic State<p>After days of mounting expectation, the Iraqi government finally announced a serious offensive to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35158105">retake the city of Ramadi</a>, the capital of western Iraq’s Anbar Province, from Islamic State (IS).</p>
<p>This is far from the first announcement of the imminent recapture of Ramadi, occupied by IS since May 2015 after months of attacks. However, the Iraqi military and allied militias have been foiled before by IS’s tactics of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/artificial-intelligence-reveals-isis-ied-strategy-roadside-bombs-more-likely-after-2043650">improvised explosive devices</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/death-toll-rises-triple-truck-bomb-attack-kurdish-controlled-syria">bomb-laden trucks</a>, and <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/roadside-bombs-snipers-delay-ramadi-offensive-1449427231">booby traps</a>, as well as the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isis-ramadi_56698eafe4b0f290e5221c90">destruction of all major bridges</a> into the city.</p>
<p>This has only raised the stakes for the reclaiming of Ramadi. Strategically, it is the “<a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/thebirminghambrief/items/2015/05/iraq-ramadi-islamic-state-21-05-15.aspx">vein of Baghdad</a>”, which is just over 100km to the east, and is close to the holy city of Karbala to the south and to the borders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan. IS could use this position both to claim its ascendancy in Iraq – Ramadi is the capital of Anbar, the country’s largest province – and to maintain a route to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/telling-the-truth-about-isis-and-raqqa">Raqqa</a>, its central position in Syria.</p>
<iframe src="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/embed?mid=z6OWAMleTW6c.kPFNvzxSmQIk" width="100%" height="480"></iframe>
<p>The loss of Ramadi further challenged the Iraqi Government’s already shaky authority. Thousands of Iraqi families were displaced, and many of them are still trapped on <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-crisis-situation-report-no-58-19-25-august-2015-enar">Bzeibiz Bridge</a>. Amid fears that IS-linked men are among the homeless, officials have restricted access to the capital.</p>
<p>So the Iraqi joint military operations command <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/06/02/Iraqi-PM-to-outline-plan-for-retaking-Ramadi-U-S-official.html">declared</a> its plans to retake the city – but only now has it begun to act on them.</p>
<h2>Going in</h2>
<p>The plan was that artillery bombardment by the Iraqi army and airstrikes by US-led forces would support a ground assault including Shia paramilitary units, some of them led by Iranian officers, and Sunni tribal fighters. In preparation, Anbar Province’s military command headquarters and the western Ramadi district of Tamim were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-troops-close-in-on-ramadi-retake-army-headquarters/2015/12/08/fa1ccd76-9dbb-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html">retaken and occupied</a>.</p>
<p>The final campaign was held up for weeks, ostensibly to give civilians the opportunity to evacuate the city. Then, on December 20, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-ramadi-idUSKBN0U30K120151220">leaflets declared</a> the final chance to leave in the next 72 hours, suggesting two routes for exit. Eyewitnesses and local sources said that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-prevents-civilians-from-fleeing-ramadi-1449003873">IS was preventing departure</a> in hopes of using residents as human shields.</p>
<p>The next day, after military engineers installed a floating bridge over the Warar River, Iraqi forces, including anti-terrorism units, advanced to the centre of Ramadi. Backed by the US-led airstrikes, the anti-terrorism forces <a href="http://www.albawaba.com/news/iraqi-forces-storm-daesh-positions-ramadi-784942">announced the capture</a> of the al-Bakr neighborhood to the south of the city, with fierce fighting in nearby areas such as al-Thubat and al-Aramil. </p>
<p>According to local sources, the governmental compound and several neighbourhoods are still under IS’s control. However, Iraqi military officers asserted that the entire city will be <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-ramadi-idUSKBN0U60M520151223">pacified by December 25</a>.</p>
<p>The recapture of Ramadi would be another major setback for IS, which – despite its ability to project its threat in Iraq and beyond, as was made clear by last month’s Paris attacks – is a weakening force. </p>
<p>The militants have lost cities and towns such as <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/31/middleeast/iraq-isis-tikrit/">Tikrit</a> and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/13/middleeast/iraq-free-sinjar-isis/">Sinjar</a> since the summer, and Ramadi’s fall could open the way for an assault on nearby <a href="https://theconversation.com/drafts/52617/edit">Fallujah</a>, a key strategic position which is also held by the group. IS could have to fall back on its main position in <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/12/22/About-20-killed-in-strikes-on-ISIS-in-Iraq-s-Mosul-.html">Mosul</a>, Iraq’s third city. IS is also on the defensive in neighbouring Syria, having <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/map-how-much-territory-isis-lost-2015-12?r=US&IR=T">lost territory</a> to Kurdish forces in the north and east and is finding it difficult to take territory from rebels.</p>
<p>With Baghdad and other cities in the south well-protected from a counter-offensive by IS, a successful campaign could help restore confidence in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-iraqi-army-a-lost-cause-49185">Iraqi army</a>, which was humiliated by the loss of territory to IS in Anbar at the start of 2014, its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states">collapse</a> in areas such as Mosul and Tikrit in June of that year, and the setback in Ramadi in May 2015. The return of thousands of displaced people to their homes will be hailed by Baghdad as a further sign of recovery.</p>
<p>But even if a military victory is secured, other challenges await – and they will take a lot of time and effort to overcome. </p>
<h2>The challenges of success</h2>
<p>Politically, as well as militarily, the Iraqi government needs to work with local federal police and tribes to hold the ground and impose security following the liberation. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/world/middleeast/iraqi-army-isis-ramadi.html">Iraqi officials have declared</a> that this is all part of a comprehensive post-liberation plan, but this will also need to unite all efforts to rebuild the Iraqi army and enhance its role as the only legitimate, independent national institution. This is crucial not only for Ramadi and surrounding territories, but for the rest of Iraq.</p>
<p>The political challenge is closely entwined with social challenges. Since early 2014, IS has attempted to gain the support of local tribes. This outreach expanded as the group worked to quadruple its force from 4,600 to 16,000 between June 2014 and April 2015. And when the militants captured Ramadi in May 2015, they <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-ramadi-idUSKBN0O013X20150516">used the loudspeakers of mosques</a> to urge people to drop their weapons and co-operate with them, and they soon pursued the recruitment of teenagers from the city.</p>
<p>At an economic level, the crisis Iraq is enduring will continue to dog future efforts to reconstruct infrastructure and the areas IS has devastated. This reconstruction is essential to reinforce security, to counter IS’s claim to be a better governing authority, and assuage any fears that the recapture of Ramadi is simply a power grab by a particular political or religious faction or outside power. </p>
<p>Worse still, Baghdad will have to organise these efforts in the face of <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/oil-price/60838/oil-price-no-relief-in-sight-as-crude-hits-11-year-low">falling oil prices</a>, the disaster of <a href="http://www.unocha.org/iraq">over 3m internally displaced Iraqis</a>, and a debate over prime minister Haider al-Abadi’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33840067">proposals</a> to reduce government size and tackle corruption.</p>
<p>The recapture of Ramadi could give a short-term boost to a government exhausted from two years of defeat on the battlefield and accusations of mismanagement and failure to represent all Iraqis. But it will only have a lasting benefit – both for the people of Anbar and for the battle against IS across the country – if Iraq’s government can finally start to surmount the country’s sectarian divisions and begin manage to run the country properly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iraq looks to have a good chance of retaking the capital of Anbar province from Islamic State. But what comes next?Balsam Mustafa, PhD student in Modern Languages & Politics, University of BirminghamScott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/421462015-05-22T10:20:25Z2015-05-22T10:20:25ZThe ISIS takeover of Ramadi means hard choices face the Iraqi and US governments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82584/original/image-20150521-979-4rvhkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">ISIS take Ramadi; on the move in Iraq</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-254517352/stock-photo-islamic-state-isis-or-isil-unrecognized-state-and-sunni-jihadist-group-active-in-iraq-and-syria.html?src=pp-same_artist-237997351-1&ws=1">Steve Allen/Shutterstock </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last Friday, the city of Ramadi – provincial capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, and symbolic seat of its Sunni population – <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/05/21/Taking-Ramadi-Behind-ISISs-Bloody-Assault">fell</a> to an ISIS assault. </p>
<p>The loss is devastating, and not only because of the city’s size or symbolic value, or because it’s another reminder that ISIS is on the march. The loss is devastating because between Ramadi and Baghdad there is only one major city, Fallujah, which has long since fallen to ISIS and has always been known as a radical hotbed. </p>
<p>Beyond that is the capital itself. On the Baghdad side of the provincial frontier, Iranian-backed, Shiite militias are poised to move across the line to retake Anbar.</p>
<p>Hard choices about halting ISIS now and building a secure, inclusive Iraq confront both the Iraqi government and the US and its allies in the region. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82461/original/image-20150520-11422-ve4fnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iraq.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pavalena/Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The experience of working in Anbar</h2>
<p>My work for an <a href="http://www.ird.org">international nonprofit organization</a> first brought me to Anbar in the summer of 2007, not long after the American-led coalition had written the province off as “lost to the insurgency.” The push to retake it by combining the efforts of US forces and tribal militias (the “Sunni Awakening Movement” or <a href="http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/iraqs-tribal-sahwa-its-rise-and-fall">Sahwa</a>) had begun earlier that year, and by the summer had gained traction. </p>
<p>From that summer through the spring of 2008, I led a locally hired staff in efforts to reduce the involvement of youth in the insurgency in the area of a city called Hit, a few miles west into Anbar from Ramadi; in 2010, I returned to Anbar with a different organization, this time to Ramadi itself, as head of a <a href="http://www.globalcommunities.org">project</a> integrating internally displaced people who had fled to the Ramadi district from elsewhere in Iraq. My leadership role required understanding the politics and society of the area well enough to effect change without also creating unintended consequences.</p>
<p>My observations here are based in large part on my own knowledge of the region. </p>
<h2>How ISIS found a beachhead in Anbar province</h2>
<p>ISIS’ successes in Anbar province do not come out of nowhere; they come from long history of negative interactions between the Sunni and Shia of Iraq and from American and Iranian interventions. </p>
<p>ISIS’ beachhead within Sunni-dominated Anbar – that segment of the population that either didn’t resist the extremist group or that actively facilitated its advance – has its foundations in the way the US pursued the war in Iraq from the 2003 invasion onward. The US strategy prioritized short-term stability over long-term inclusive governance, and ignored the Shiite-dominated government’s pursuit of that stability through the exclusion and repression of the Sunni minority. That was followed by the sense of betrayal among Anbar’s tribal militias and the Sahwa fighters, who had fought alongside US troops to retake Anbar from the insurgency in 2007 and 2008. </p>
<p>Those fighters were subjected to greater-than-average exclusion by the government in Baghdad, ejected from or denied jobs that had been promised during the American tenure, and targeted by Iranian-backed Shia militia violence. Many saw the American withdrawal of forces as abandonment, and some have since joined the ranks of ISIS’ fighters. </p>
<p>That was worsened by the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11733715">Nouri al-Maliki</a> government’s overtly repressive and exclusionary policies toward the Sunni population, which were in turn worsened by the new <a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/21117">Haider al-Abadi</a> government’s failure to change those policies, and use of Shia paramilitaries – long a battlefield enemy to the Sunni – to bolster the overwhelmed Iraqi army in fighting ISIS. </p>
<p>Anbar’s Sunni population is very much aware of the threat from ISIS; the fighters under the black flag have not met with an unalloyed welcome, but rather by Sunni tribal militias fighting them street by street. </p>
<h2>Who is seen as the greater threat? ISIS or the Shiite government?</h2>
<p>But while <em>some</em> of the Sunni population sees threat from ISIS, <em>all</em> of the population sees threat from the Shiite government and militias. ISIS’ combination of superior force and political beachhead has been amplified by the fact that the group has good administrators as well as good fighters – a contrast to central government failures with regard to basic services, which has served it well throughout the Sunni parts of Iraq and Syria alike.</p>
<h2>So what happens next?</h2>
<p>American and other international actors, seeing one strategy in ruins, argue over what to replace it with, and whether the fall of Ramadi represents a strategic failure or merely a setback. </p>
<p>But this misses a critical point. The real question isn’t about the strategy of the American administration. The real question is about the strategy of the <em>Iraqi</em> administration – not to defeat ISIS, but to build an Iraqi society and politics that’s inclusive of Sunni and Kurd as well as Shiite.</p>
<p>Throughout its years in power, the Maliki government could hardly have done more to convince <a href="http://aina.org/news/20140615144922.htm">Iraqi Sunnis</a> that they faced a real threat. The new government, distracted by ISIS since almost its first day in office, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/26/325909167/in-new-iraqi-conflict-sunni-awakening-stays-dormant">has done far too little </a>to ameliorate that perception. Instead, it has already used <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/saddam-hussein-isis-leadership/2015/04/05/id/636539/">paramilitary Shia militias</a> to bolster its flagging regular military – the same militias that fought with Sunni counterparts during recent years of warfare. </p>
<p>The use of those militias, exacerbated by reports that they turned their violence on <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/shia-fighters-accused-killing-civilians-iraq-150127062642331.html">Sunni populations</a> immediately after engaging ISIS’ fighters in <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/04/07/398004441/after-retaking-tikrit-shiite-militias-accused-of-violence-against-sunnis">Tikrit</a> and elsewhere, has only added to the problem. </p>
<p>The result: All the easy options are long since gone, and any strategy to defeat ISIS will fail if it doesn’t address the underlying drivers of insecurity and/or continues using the same tools that previously fueled violence.</p>
<h2>Facing the hard options in Iraq</h2>
<p>That may sound glib, but it’s also going to be impossible to rouse the will to tackle the hard options until this tough reality is recognized and accepted. Some situations simply do not lend themselves to easy, straightforward solutions. </p>
<p>In the meantime, those Shiite militias massing west of Baghdad on the Anbar frontier are certainly capable of winning the initial fight against ISIS. With more easily defensible supply lines, they can mobilize greater numbers and greater firepower than the ISIS fighters now holding Ramadi. The US, seeking to defeat ISIS as soon as possible, will likely add air power and perhaps even special operations troops to the fight. The Iraqi flag will fly over Ramadi again, however briefly. </p>
<p>But unless an Iraqi-conceived and Iraqi-led plan for a peaceful governance – which includes Sunnis – follows, the victory will be Pyrrhic. Those militias will be seen – for good reason – as a worse threat than ISIS in the long term and at least as bad in the short term by the population of Ramadi. The militias are symbolic of more than a decade’s worth of sectarian violence, and while there may be a temporary alliance against a larger enemy, that alliance will be entirely ephemeral.</p>
<h2>Two key actions, short term and long term, are required</h2>
<p>ISIS cannot, of course, be allowed to continue its expansion or to continue holding the territory it has already taken. But two things are required if Baghdad wants to halt ISIS and also ensure that a civil war between Sunni tribal militias and Shia paramilitaries does not begin the second the fighting with ISIS is done. </p>
<p>For the short term, the Iraqi government should ensure that any troops massing on the Anbar provincial frontier are Sunni, with Sunni leadership and the full and explicit blessing of the national government as such. </p>
<p>For the long term, Baghdad will need to provide guarantees of inclusive, nonrepressive government and power-sharing for the Sunni population. </p>
<p>Iraq’s government will need to lay out its own explicitly Iraqi strategy for socio-political inclusion and power sharing -— something it has yet to do. That strategy cannot be seen as either American or Iranian, if it hopes to induce willing Sunni participation in a shared government. </p>
<p>No American strategy, no matter how tactically decisive, will make a positive difference in the presence of an Iraqi government that continues to do its utmost to marginalize and repress the Sunni population. The US has been reminded that imposed regime change is a losing battle – change needs to be argued out by the Iraqis themselves. </p>
<p>A successful strategy regarding ISIS would aim to produce a peaceful, unified Iraq in which ISIS cannot find common cause. There will, of course, be a need for some tactical action to dislodge the group and protect civilians in the short term. </p>
<p>But the attempt to “defeat ISIS militarily” without also ensuring that change is the same strategy that scattered broken pieces of al-Qaida into the fertile ground of Iraqi exclusion … only to see it grow into this new menace. </p>
<p>As will happen again, if we continue to make the mistake of bringing defeat and forgetting to build peace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Alpher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ISIS victories in Iraq do not come out of the blue; the group’s military success results from a long history of tensions between Sunnis and Shia and US policies that fostered such tension.David Alpher, Adjunct Professor at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.