Daily Times

After a grueling three-year war against the Islamic State (IS), Iraqi Prime Minister (PM) Haider al Abedi has declared victory over the terrorist group. Abedi has declared that IS has finally been expelled from the country, and that Iraqi forces are now in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border. Back in 2014, IS had used a lightening offensive to capture vast swathes of land in Iraq and Syria. At one point, the terrorist group controlled nearly a third of Iraqi territory. Back then, Iraqi security forces were on the back foot. The fight against IS truly began when Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of the country’s Shia majority, called for general mobilisation against the outfit. This led to the formation of the Hashed al-Shabi paramilitary units. According to Al Abadi, the war against IS has cost Iraq $100 billion.

Al Abadi’s speech came after the recapture of Rawa, the last remaining IS held border town in Iraq. Yet all parties in Iraq aren’t happy. The Iraqi PM has been criticised for not giving credit to Kurdish forces in his victory speech by the regional government of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The Kurdish statement added that IS would have been able to cause a lot more damage in Iraq if the Kurdish Peshmerga had not halted its advances.

The Kurds’ wish for an independence has long been a bone of contention with the Iraqi government. Relations soured even more after October 2017 following the battle of Kirkuk when Iraqi forces captured the oil rich Kirkuk, an area which the Kurds consider essential for an independent Kurdistan. Furthermore,relations were also strained after the Iraqi federal government declared the 25 September referendum for Kurdistan’s secession from Iraq to be illegal.

The differences between ethnic groups are not the only fault line in Iraq. The Shia-Sunni divide runs just as deep. Saddam Hussein’s reign in Iraq was one in which the minority Sunni population took most of the senior positions in governance, bureaucracy and military and the majority Shia population was largely sidelined. After Saddam and the Ba’athists were removed from power and Iraq started what has since been a long-drawn out journey towards democratic governance, the situation got reversed. Tensions between the two communities rose, to the benefit of sectarian terror organisations like IS.

Going forward, Al Abedi must realise that the rise of IS was the result of a failure of the old Sykes-Picot borders and that different communities cannot be kept held together by force alone.  *

Published in Daily Times, December 12^th 2017.