The U.S. is struggling to stop a new civil war in Iraq

By Greg Walters Oct 25, 2017

Since 2014, the U.S. has rallied an unlikely coalition of allies, and adversaries, in the Middle East to fight against one common enemy: ISIS.

Now, with the terrorist group’s caliphate on the verge of collapse, the U.S. is confronting its next great challenge: How to keep members of the winning side from tearing each other apart?

“The anti-ISIS coalition is a victim of its own success. It’s losing the common enemy.”
Washington now faces tough choices between feuding allies, analysts said, while it tries to contain the rising influence of another power player in the region: Iran.

The Iraqi army, joined by Iran-backed Shia militias, surged north in a surprise attack to capture the oil-rich region of Kirkuk in a stunning defeat for Kurdish peshmerga forces, which had held effective control of the region ever since Iraqi forces abandoned Kirkuk while retreating from ISIS in 2014.

Early indications suggest things are not going Washington’s way.

“The U.S. is in a very difficult position,” Nathaniel Rabkin, managing editor of the newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics, told VICE News. “The anti-ISIS coalition is a victim of its own success. It’s losing the common enemy.”

This was immediately made evident last week, when fighting erupted between Iraq’s federal government and the autonomous province of Kurdistan, leaving the U.S. with little recourse but to implore both sides to use dialogue to resolve their differences peacefully.

The Iraqi army, joined by Iran-backed Shia militias, surged north in a surprise attack to capture the oil-rich region of Kirkuk in a stunning defeat for Kurdish peshmerga forces, which had held effective control of the region ever since Iraqi forces abandoned Kirkuk while retreating from ISIS in 2014.

In the face of military defeat, the Kurdistan Regional Government on Wednesday offered to “freeze” the results of their Sept. 25 referendum on independence from Iraq, which had enraged Baghdad, and enter dialogue. But as of this writing, the Iraqi government, which demanded the referendum be “annulled,” has yet to respond.

“We are disappointed in the lukewarm position of the United States in general.”
With their defenses overrun, Kurdish leaders are now fuming over America’s reluctance to do more to deter Baghdad’s assault — despite the Kurds’ willingness to shed blood in the name of the U.S.-led fight against terrorism.

“People are being killed here,” Safeen Dizayee, chief of staff to the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, told VICE News. “We expect the international community, particularly the U.S., to put pressure on Baghdad to cease its hostilities.”

The unrest has already resulted in civilian deaths, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group said in a report Tuesday that in the city of Tuz Khurmatu alone, hundreds of properties were looted and set on fire in “what appears to be a targeted attack on predominantly Kurdish areas of the city.” The report cited eyewitnesses blaming Iraqi government forces and the militias. At least 11 civilians were killed in “indiscriminate attacks,” and 35,000 people have fled the city since Oct. 16, the report said.

To Dizayee, the events came with an unsettling sense of déjà vu. He recalled America’s unwillingness to stop Saddam Hussein’s brutal assault on the Kurdish people in 1991 following the first Gulf War. Back then, the Kurds had responded to President George H.W. Bush’s call for the Iraqi people to rise up against the dictator. Thousands of Kurds were then slaughtered by Saddam’s helicopter gunships.

“We’re always saying the Iranians play chess and the West plays checkers. Well, the West just played chess.”

“It’s bringing back the negative images of 1991, when people fled from Saddam’s wrath,” Dizayee said, before adding, with tension in his voice: “We are disappointed in the lukewarm position of the United States in general.”

President Donald Trump had declared the U.S. would remain neutral, even though Baghdad’s forces cruised to victory last week atop U.S.-supplied M1 Abrams tanks.

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