In Iraq, old enemies now new U.S. allies
U.S. takes risk working with ex-members of Iranian-backed militias who once fought and killed American soldiers
IMOSUL, Iraq raq’s interior minister, Qassim al-Araji, has a troubled history with the United States. He was detained twice by the Americans at the notorious Camp Bucca prison during the Iraq War and held for 23 months, accused of smuggling Iranianmade bombs that had become effective killers of U.S. troops.
As a former commander of an Iranianbacked militia, his loyalties are open to question. But when he met with the U.S. ambassador last year, he had a surprising message: He and other former Shiite militants wanted the Americans to stay. Iraq needed their help, he said, to stabilize the country and combat the threat of the Islamic State group.
He even jokingly praised the superiority of U.S. jails over Iraqi ones. “You have some things to teach us,” he told the U.S. ambassador, Douglas J. Silliman.
The request represented a monumental switch for some of Iraq’s most influential Shiite leaders and an opportunity for the United States to achieve its elusive security goals in the region, albeit with some unlikely partners.
But the evolving alliance means that the U.S. military is taking a risk: training, sharing intelligence and planning missions with former members of Iranian-backed militias who once fought and killed Americans.
Several former militia commanders have risen to high-level political positions. Now, a coalition of them is expected to be among the biggest winners in parliamentary elections Saturday, giving them even more prominent roles in the new government and possibly determining the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq.
The United States has expanded secretive military ventures and counterterrorism missions in remote corners of the world, but in Iraq, it is taking a different tack. Here, the United States is reducing its troop presence and gambling that common interests with former adversaries will help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group. The bet seemed to pay off with the announcement this week that a joint Iraqi-American intelligence sting captured five senior Islamic State leaders.
And as President Donald Trump pursues a confrontational approach with Iran, the U.S. military hopes to use its evolving Iraqi partnerships to peel away Shiite factions from Iran’s orbit and chip away at Tehran’s influence in Iraq and the region. “This is a time when Iraqi patriots can build their nation,” said Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk II, the commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria. “There is an opportunity here. We will do all we can to give them all the help they need and want.”
It was the Islamic State fighters’ conquest of a third of Iraqi territory in 2014 that first brought together once-rival Iraqi militias and security forces with a U.S.-led military coalition in a united effort to defeat a common enemy. The United States wanted to prevent the Islamic State group from building a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and the Shiite militias saw the Sunni extremist group as a sectarian threat.
After Iraq’s regular armed forces crumbled in the face of the Islamic State blitz, a coalition of Iranian-financed Shiite militias took up front-line positions against the extremists. The militias never worked directly with the Americans, but a joint command helped coordinate their efforts to defeat the Islamic State forces.
Now, some of the most influential militia leaders are working directly with the Americans and pressing for a continued U.S. military presence. For some of these former militants, America’s display of superior equipment and skills side by side with them in battle brought a newfound respect. Others say they had an ideological reckoning, a realization that years of sectarianism and interference from Iraq’s neighbors had made their nation vulnerable to invasion. Partnering with the world’s superpower, they said, was the best way to bring Iraq back up from its knees.
“We all made mistakes in the past, the Americans, as well as us,” said Hadi al-Ameri, the leader of the Badr Organization, the largest of the Shiite militias that helped battle the Islamic State and the leader of the electoral alliance of former militia members, known as Fatah. “Now, we need their help. We can’t let our country become a playground for other powers and their agendas.”