Tag Archives: US

Sleeping with the enemy

Salah EB

Sleeping with the enemy

Washington’s way of doing business with Iraq’s Shia militias will test US strategy in the Middle East as never before, writes Salah Nasrawi

When Iraq’s Shia militias began rising to prominence following advances made by the Islamic State (IS) terror group in 2014, the United States put Baghdad on notice that it could lose military support if Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi did not reign in militiamen accused of stocking sectarianism.

Official US policy towards the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF), the umbrella organisation of scores of Shia militias, was negative.

On many occasions the Obama administration threatened that the US-led coalition fighting IS would withhold support for the Iraqi security forces if the Iran-backed militias were deployed in battle, claiming that their involvement could help the militants rally Sunni residents to their cause.

Things have changed a lot since then. Another script is now running, as Washington seems to be looking favourably on a long-term enemy whom the United States and its regional Sunni allies have accused of being Iran’s proxy in the conflicts in Iraq.

The first glaring sign that Washington had found a new friend in Iraq’s Shia militias came from Brett McGurk, the Obama administration’s point man to Iraq officially known as the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS.

On 21 October last year, McGurk tweeted that “the US commends progress by Iraqi security forces & popular mobilisation forces against #ISIL terrorist in Baiji.”

In another tweet he wrote “these units performed heroically over months of fighting, and we now look forward to strengthening our partnership in coming offensives.” Soon Washington dropped its former resolve, and policy began moving in an affirmative direction towards the old adversary.

Now the United States is no longer objecting to PMF participation in battles against IS, and in many operations US warplanes have provided aerial support to PMF units.

On 12 March, US consul-general in Basra Steve Walker visited the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital in the city to pay his respects to wounded members of the PMF. The visit marked the first time a top US official had publicly met members of the Shia militias.

In June, a declaration by a state department-sponsored coalition conference in Washington officially endorsed the PMF as a partner in the war against IS.

But the most dramatic shift in the US strategy in Iraq came nearly two weeks ago when Western diplomats working closely with Washington met secretly with PMF leaders outside Iraq.

The Monitor, a US-based media outlet specialising in Middle Eastern affairs, reported on 19 August that the Lebanese capital Beirut had been the scene of a series of secret meetings between Western diplomats and UN officials and PMF leaders.

It said the meetings, arranged by “one of the UN organisations operating in Iraq,” had been held in a Beirut hotel from 8 to 11 August. A PMF delegate told the media outlet that the meetings had been requested by Western governments and insisted that they were closely coordinating the move with Washington.

A spokesperson for the PMF in Baghdad gave a slightly different version of the discussions, however. Moein Al-Kadhumi said the meetings had been sponsored by the Helsinki-based International Dialogue on Peace Building and State Building to discuss the future role of the PMF in the war against IS.

The Monitor, however, quoted the militia leader as saying the discussions with the Western diplomats “covered almost everything”.

Among the key issues the diplomats wanted to clarify was whether the tens of thousands-strong paramilitary force would be “fully merged with the Iraqi army,” as Al-Abadi has decreed.

“Our answer was clear. We will be a military force that is part of the Iraqi state, but not part of the Iraqi army,” the leader told Al-Monitor. He said the PMF delegation had made it clear that “we will be an alternative army subordinated to the state, just like Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

The PMF leader said the Western diplomats also wanted to know if the militias were considering plans to take part in the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2018 and if they would join any political alliance or participate in the government.

“In terms of our relations with the various components of the Iraqi people, we stressed that the PMF had emerged from all of the Iraqi people,” Al-Monitor quoted him as telling the Western delegates.

“Because they insisted on meeting us alone and discussing the same issues, we deduced that the Germans were actually representing the United States in the meetings, and that this meeting was a preliminary step that would pave the way for subsequent direct or indirect contacts [with the United States],” he said.

“If liberating Fallujah brought us to Beirut, what will the liberation of Mosul bring,” asked the PMF leader, referring to last month’s recapturing of the IS stronghold in Anbar Province from the militants and their intention to participate in the battle for Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul.

By and large, the Beirut rendezvous, which must have the blessing if not the support of Washington, was nothing less than a strategic shift in US policy towards the Iraqi Shia militias. But the exchange also underscores the militias’ cool pragmatism.

Militia leaders have often threatened that they will attack US forces in Iraq, rejecting any attempt to send more American troops to the country or to set up US military bases. Muqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Peace Brigades militia, blasted Walker’s visit to the country and those Shia officials who had welcomed the gesture.

According to US officials, there are up to 100,000 Iran-backed fighters now on the ground in Iraq. Last week Chris Garver, a Baghdad-based US military spokesman, confirmed to the US TV outlet Fox News that the fighters were mostly Iraqis, adding that the Iranian-backed Shia militia “are usually identified at around 80,000”.

At least one group, Kataib Hizbullah, is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States.

There are thousands of Iranian-backed forces in Syria fighting in support of the Alawite-controlled regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. In addition to fighters from the Lebanese group Hizbullah and Shia militias, some of these Iranian-backed forces come from as far afield as Afghanistan, and hundreds have died fighting against Sunni rebels.

The new US approach towards the Shia militia in Iraq, however, raises three key questions far beyond the usual selective and situational relationships that have seemed to define Washington’s approach in the war against IS.

First, is the United States prepared to overcome its twitchiness and do business with the Shia militias, which have long been considered as a US enemy?

Second, is the United States readying itself for a new strategy in Iraq after the defeat of IS in which the Shias may expand, consolidate and institutionalise their power at the expense of both the Arab Muslim Sunnis and ethnics Kurds?

Third, does this mean that the United States will recognise Iraq as a playground for Iran and accept the Islamic Republic not only as the main actor in Iraq but also as a key regional superpower?

Of course, the answers to these questions will largely depend on the outcome of the war against IS and the new political landscape in Iraq and Syria that is expected to emerge. This will have broader implications for a region strewn with local conflicts that have been exacerbated by the interventions of regional and international powers.

Pragmatism, to say the least, has been the norm in the US way of doing business in the Middle East, including recasting policy to engage actors other than its traditional friends and allies.

With the Obama administration keen to snatch victory over IS before the end of the president’s term in January, Washington may think its new-found tough love approach to the Iraqi Shia militias could make that victory easier.

Yet, it remains to be seen if the next administration will embrace the new approach towards what has long been considered one of America’s most dangerous adversaries in the Middle East.

If that happens, it will represent a tectonic shift from the past, with dramatic consequences for both the region’s conflicts and US Middle East policy.

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on August, 25, 2016

Analysis: What does US Intel really know about ISIL?

Analysis: What does US Intel really know about ISIL?

The US intelligence failure on ISIL is raising serious questions in the Middle East.

Salah Nasrawi |

 A major cause of President George W Bush’s blunder in Iraq was US intelligence failures, first over Saddam Hussein’s lack of weapons of mass destruction and then, after connecting the dots of the September 11 plot, the linking of the Iraqi president to Osama bin Laden’s Al­Qaeda.
It took Bush’s partner in the Iraq fiasco, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, more than 13 years to grudgingly admit in October to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the war conspiracy which led directly to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the destruction it has wreaked in the Middle East was based on “wrong” intelligence.
Without the controversy over the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq War, it would also have been hard to get an admission from Blair that there were “elements of truth” in the idea that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 assisted the rise of the ISIL.
What he has failed to admit, however, is that the prewar intelligence was deliberately “sexed up” to build the case for the invasion. OPINION: Blair, the Iraq War and me Now, as US President Barack Obama agonises over how to defeat ISIL, it seems to be happening again.
Messy US intelligence failure in the war in Iraq has resurfaced, leading to allegations that the US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees military operations across the Middle East, is cooking the books about both ISIL and Iraq.
This week Obama ordered his senior defence officials to find out whether classified intelligence assessments for policymakers had been altered at Centcom to reflect a more optimistic picture of the US military campaign against ISIL.
With cracks revealed in France’s counterterrorism efforts by the November 13 attacks in Paris, the Centcom scandal has gained increasing attention, including a Congressional probe.
The New York Times, which first broke the story, reported that supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the US military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and beating back ISIL.
According to the newspaper, the analysts said supervisors were particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of the US role in the conflict than was warranted.
While revelations that French intelligence failures might have played into the hands of ISIL in carrying out its deadly attacks in Paris and hence broadening the group’s focus to attack the West, the Pentagon spying scam tells another story of doctoring intelligence behind the group’s expansion.
It appears that the Centcom intelligence reports have overstated military progress against ISIL in Iraq, giving Obama the leeway to avoid responsibility for the rise of ISIL.
Many analysts had for years argued that Obama’s lack of vision on Iraq and his ineffective strategy in Syria would create a radicalising momentum that would help ISIL expand its power.
What the little information about the Centcom scandal revealed so far indicates is that the problem goes beyond analysis failure to actually meddling with intelligence about the campaign against ISIL, by exaggerating successes and downplaying serious setbacks in order to serve the president’s agenda.
This bodes ill for Obama whose current approach to ISIL has largely failed to dislodge the group from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Now Obama could face criticism that US intelligence and military officials were only telling him what he wants to hear.
However, the case of US intelligence failure over ISIL is raising more serious questions in the Middle East. Absurd as it may seem, the revelations about cracks in US intelligence have added fodder to conspiracy scenarios that Washington is behind ISIL.
While some Iraqis have complained that the US has been sitting on its hands as the war has raged against ISIL, Iran­backed Shia militias have often accused the US­led coalition of parachuting weapons to ISIL fighters or even targeting Iraq’s security forces’ positions.
In Syria, Obama’s seesaw strategy has given rise to similar theories, in both President Bashar alAssad’s camp and that of his opponents. While the Assad regime blames the Pentagon for failing to foresee the rise of the “Islamic State” as a consequence of its strategy, Syrian opposition believe that the Obama administration has signed off on diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing down Assad.
Check that against what US Senator John McCain disclosed last May that 75 percent of US pilots on missions to attack ISIL targets are returning without dropping any ordnance, due to delays in decision­making up the chain of command, then conspiracy theorists here seem to be making some rational points.
This analysis appeared first on Al  Jazeera on November 26, 2015

Cracks in Iraqi-US relations

Cracks in Iraqi-US relations

Last week’s visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to Washington highlighted the widening gulf in the Iraqi-US partnership, writes Salah Nasrawi

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi stunned the Obama administration during a visit to Washington last week when he told journalists that the White House was unhappy with the Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi forces in Yemen which he warned could engulf the Middle East in war.

Al-Abadi’s criticism of the US-backed Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and his claims of the White House’s dissatisfaction with the mission prompted a swift denial from the Obama administration and the Saudi ambassador in Washington Adel Jubeir.

Whether scripted or not, Al-Abadi’s comments have underlined serious problems in the Iraqi-US relationship and have far-reaching implications for how Washington is engaged in Iraq’s political and security crises.

Since the US troop pullout in 2011, the Iraqi-US relationship has had many ups and downs but has worked largely by disguising key differences over several intertwined issues, mostly leftovers from the era of the decade-long US occupation of the country.

But many of the new disputes, which centre around broader regional policies and approaches to resolving and managing regional conflicts, seem to have made the Iraqi-US relationship more lopsided, and thus more fraught, than ever before.

While in Washington Al-Abadi took aim at the Saudi-led military campaign against the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen. He explained his worries that Saudi airstrikes might be a precursor for a more assertive Saudi military role in neighbouring countries, including Iraq.

Ordinarily, this should not have bothered Washington, which is committed by the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement with Baghdad to help strengthen “security and stability in Iraq” and enhance its ability “to deter all threats against its sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.”

But Al-Abadi’s remarks seemed to have gone too far in unravelling the paradox in Iraqi-US relations and underscoring the Obama administration’s fractured and even contradictory Middle East policies.

For Al-Abadi and the rest of the Iraqi Shia, the US’s expanding role in Saudi Arabia’s campaign against the Houthis in Yemen is not helpful either in combating terrorism in the region or in easing mounting Shia-Sunni tensions.

For the Iraqi Shia, US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen looks like a tale of hypocrisy that rules the world.

What is puzzling to the Iraqi Shia-led government is that while US President Barack Obama has called on the Gulf nations to use their influence on Libya’s warring factions to help resolve the chaotic situation there, US drones flying over Yemen transmit the information that Gulf jetfighters use to attack targets in Yemen.

Obama’s invitation to the leaders of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies for a meeting at Camp David next month “to discuss ways to enhance partnership and deepen security cooperation” may also increase the Iraqi Shia-led government’s fears about Washington’s gamble.

One of the scenarios for the upcoming summit is that the United States may propose to help the Saudi-led camp to acquire a similar status to Iran, both with an internationally recognised nuclear programme and a reinforced regional posture.

This feared scenario, if materialised, could initiate a trilateral relationship between the US, Iran and the Saudi-led camp that Washington will hope will ensure regional equilibrium and enhance stability.

But such a perception ignores the fact that the dynamics of Arab-Iranian relations are further complicated by historical, nationalistic and sectarian enmities and regional competition.

Worse, without regional institutions to achieve its goals it remains questionable whether such an innovation on the multilateral front would amount to something that could usefully be considered as the basis for new regional arrangements.

In this regard, Iraq’s concerns remain immediate and focused. Al-Abadi’s warning in Washington about Iraq being within the radar of Saudi Arabia was actually a message to the Obama administration that it needs to be more sensitive to concerns that its approach to Saudi Arabia could turn the conflict in Yemen into an all-out regional sectarian war.

Furthermore, it could encourage the kingdom to launch a similar campaign against Iraq or Syria.

Another sign of fissures between the Iraqi Shia-led government in Baghdad and Washington is over differences in conducting the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Iraq.

Since it started some ten months ago when IS captured vast swathes of territory in the country, the two sides have sharply differed on policies and the military strategies needed to beat IS and take back the land.

While Obama suggested a military strategy of airstrikes to “degrade and ultimately destroy IS” coupled with a political approach that called for Sunni inclusion in Iraq, the Baghdad government resorted to Shia Iran for help in battling IS.

Iran has been supporting Iraq with weapons, intelligence and training in the battles. But its main contribution has been in mobilising its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to build a massive Iraqi Shia paramilitary force that has been effective in regaining control over Iraq’s Sunni provinces.

While the United States sees the Iranian involvement in the fighting in Iraq as possibly turning the war on terrorism into a sectarian war, the Iraqi government has criticised the “slow tempo” of the US airstrikes and their ineffectiveness.

Iraq complains of a lack of US intelligence and weapon supplies to the Iraqi security forces. Its main concern remains that the US military strategy to combat IS is not working and has even created further confusion in Iraq.

During Al-Abadi’s visit to Washington a key difference surfaced when Al-Abadi told reporters that the next step in military operations against IS fighters would be to try to roll them back in Iraq’s western Anbar Province.

In contrast, US top brass general Martin Dempsey said defending Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital, was of secondary importance compared with protecting the Beiji oil refinery from IS militants, a stance even some Republicans in the US have criticised as minimising setbacks.

Earlier, the two sides had differed publically on when a military push to retake the northern strategic city of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, would take place. Again, US officials expressed concerns about the role of the Iran-backed militias in the offensive, while the Iraqis insisted that they should be in control of the timetable and tactics in the battle to retake Mosul.

The disagreements have been costly as Iraq has had to delay an offensive to take back Anbar following Washington’s insistence that the Shia paramilitary forces should not take part in order for the US to provide airpower support to the Iraqi troops.

As a result, the IS militants initiated a counter-offensive and seized more land in Ramadi this week, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee Ramadi and triggering a fresh humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

Iraq’s security forces had to reorganise and bring reserves from the Shia-led Popular Mobilisation Force in order to halt the militants from further advancing in Ramadi and threatening Baghdad.

One more sign of Iraqi frustration with Washington has been the latter’s failure to support Baghdad with the kinds of weapons it needs to fight IS. While in Washington Al-Abadi kept telling the media that the Iraqi security forces needed American weapons such as tanks and warplanes “badly”.

Nevertheless, he returned to Baghdad empty-handed and with only a pledge from Obama for $200 million in humanitarian support for those displaced by IS onslaughts.

The United States may have adopted certain policies in Iraq and the Middle East, but the Obama administration’s approach can hardly be seen as reflecting the true reality of Iraq’s and the region’s complex politics.

Its main deficiency is that it has failed to understand the region as it really is.

The confusion it has created has divided people in Iraq and in the Middle East between those who believe that the administration’s strategy empowers the Shia militias in Iraq and Iran, and others who see Washington as an ally in the war against the Shia.

At no time since it withdrew its troops from Iraq has the United States seemed so undone as a strategic partner because of its poor policies.

If there is one simple way of describing the US attitude towards Iraq, it is in the Iraqi proverb: “I won’t feed you. And I won’t let you beg.” That can hardly maintain a partnership based on trust and confidence.

This article appeared  first in Al-Ahram Weekly on April 23, 2015