Iraq is facing a turning point between the Army and “Daesh”

According to analysts, Iraq reached a crucial stage, where it is facing a turning point that puts it in front of two choices: either to achieve reconciliation and to return to the democratic life, or to continue with the political and social split and thus facing a comprehensive chaos and a civil war and then a division. 

Iraq ever since the U.S. withdrawal is facing successive political crises, amid a sectarian social division in parallel with large security deterioration. In fact, this made the city of al-Fallujah that is only 60 km away from the capital Baghdad turn on Saturday into an Islamic state after the fighters of al-Qaeda took control over it. 

The political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari said that “These days are the days of determination.

The coming days will determine the fate of Iraq fully, as the country is facing a turning point.

It would either achieve reconciliation and a democratic state, or would face split, a comprehensive chaos, and a civil war that would lead to division”. 

He added, “Iraq would either become a democratic state, where everyone becomes equal, or would fall down”. 

In fact, the year 2013 was the bloodiest year in Iraq since the end of the sectarian conflict in 2008, after the violence operations escalated dramatically, especially those that have a sectarian character after storming a Sunni sit-in Square that was opposing the authority that is controlled by Shiites on April during an operation that killed dozens of people. 

However, the beginning of the year 2014 was not better on the security front, for the security forces lost for the first time since many years their control over an entire city in favor of al-Qaeda, where al-Fallujah became controlled by the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” organization. 

The fighters of this organization that is known simply as “Daesh” and that is crossing the border with Syria were able to control al-Fallujah and some areas of the nearby city of al-Ramadi (100 km west of Baghdad), despite the military campaign that is targeting its camps since about ten days, where aircrafts are used therein. 

The control of al-Qaeda over the city of al-Fallujah was an exceptional event due to the symbolism of this city, which fought two fierce battles against the U.S. forces in 2004. 

The first American attack that aimed at subduing the Sunni insurgency in the city failed miserably, what turned al-Fallujah quickly into a refuge for al-Qaeda and its allies, who were able to control it and to impose a fait accompli. 

Yet, about two thousand civilians in addition to 140 American soldiers were killed in the second battle, what was described as the harshest battle waged by the U.S. forces since the Vietnam War. 

A political science professor at the University of Mustansiriya, Essam Al-Feli, considered that “al-Qaeda’s main effective cells are near Baghdad, and this is considered a miscalculation by the government that is dragging Iraq into an unknown destiny, warning of further crises and larger and more dangerous social division”. 

He explained that “The successive political crises made the authority busy and thus it ignored the subsequent tsunami; the tsunami of Daesh”. 

This organization was established in 2006 in Iraq at the hands of the Jordanian man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in an American air raid in the same year, and its first and only goal was and still is to establish an Islamic State in the areas inhabited by the majority of Sunnis in Iraq, and today in Syria as well. 

This organization is considered the largest and the most powerful between the armed rebel and extremist groups in Iraq, where it adopts most of the violence operations in the country that often target the security forces and the areas inhabited by the majority of Shiites. 

Observers believe that this organization was able to restore its influence that it used to enjoy in the period after the invasion due to its success in riding the wave of the Sunni anger that is due to marginalization and the repeated targeting, pointing out that this does not mean that the Sunnis are becoming loyal to al-Qaeda, but that they are limiting their cooperation with the government in hunting this organization. 

Charles Lester, a researcher at the Brookings Doha Center, said that “The power and the control of the extremist groups on the ground expand in al-Anbar”, which is sharing borders with Syria by about 300 km, and which was considered one of the main strongholds of al-Qaeda during al-Zarqawi’s days”. 

He added that the process of removing the anti-government Sunni sit-in in the province of al-Anbar last Monday, which was demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who is accused of pursuing a policy of marginalization against the Sunnis, pushed the Sunni tribes to enter into conflict with the security forces and “the Daesh organization succeeded in riding the wave of this Sunni anger”. 

In addition to the security deterioration and the rampant corruption found in the body of the state, Iraq is paralyzed at the level of the work of the government that is led by Sunni-Shiite conflicting movements that sometimes threaten of resignation and other times incite their partners in the Council of Ministers. 

This paralyzed situation extends to the House of Representatives, which often merely postpone announcing the failure to reach agreement on the majority of important laws, at a time when the country is standing on the threshold of new parliamentary elections at the end of next April. 

Al-Shammari considers that “The authorities have to focus on the moderate parties out of the Sunni Arabs to attract them to governance and to grant them a large room at the level of the federal authorities, so as to hope to see a democratic Iraq”. 

He added that “The Sunni Arabs are the ones who will determine the upcoming fate of Iraq”.