““Winning the peace is harder than winning the war.””
Haider Al-Abadi, Prime Minister of Iraq, walked through the streets of Mosul. A balding man of short stature with greying hair, he seemed an unlikely candidate to lead Iraq to victory over Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State. He had replaced his neat traditional white-collar and suit with a jet black military uniform and cap. The Iraq flag, crimson, white and black was pinned to his chest. Surrounded by bodyguards in khaki and sunglasses, armed to the teeth, and flocked by journalists, he could barely raise his hand to wave to the crowd over the towering figures snapping away at him and those protecting him. He bustled about the city, answering questions, shaking hands, and engaging with the soldiers.
Al-Abadi was keen to make a political statement and pay tribute to the soldiers who’d fought for nine months to capture the city. Many more soldiers, special forces turned shock troops had been fighting for years from Fallujah to Ramadi to Sinjar through to Mosul. The siege was described by a Pentagon spokesman as the most significant urban combat operation since the Second World War. Al-Abadi stood before the cameras for state television without a script or podium, his military command standing to attention. “I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul,” he said bluntly and confidently.
It was a symbolic moment for Al-Abadi who had entered office on 9th September 2014 with Islamic State on the war path. Mere months before Al-Abadi’s appointment, Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph, and his soldiers had cut Iraq to ribbons and lay on the doorstep of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital city. Only a month before, they conducted ethnic cleansing operations in Nineveh and begun its genocide against the Yazidi minorities in Iraq. Token American airstrikes had starting peppering Islamic State after a series of public executions of international aid workers and journalists and months of mass murder of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war in Iraq and Syria. Mosul was the War on Terror’s ground zero and the city from which Islamic State was able to project its terror across the Middle East and the wider world.
The terrorist group turned paramilitary and mini-state had now lost Mosul, its most important city after Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital in Syria. Al-Abadi continued his speech. “From here in the heart of free and liberated Mosul, by the sacrifices of Iraqis from all provinces. We announce an absolute victory for Iraq and all Iraqis,” he said pointing his finger energetically. He was strict to emphasise that the war against Islamic State was not complete. Security would be the emphasis. “We have another mission ahead of us, to create stability, to build and clear Islamic State cells and that requires an intelligence and security effort, and the unity which enabled us to fight Islamic State.” He concluded the ceremony by raising an Iraqi flag, a dramatic gesture he would repeat in Al-Qaim when Islamic State was uprooted from its final sliver of territory in Iraq in autumn that same year. By December 2017 - 1259 days after Baghdadi declared a caliphate in Mosul - Abadi had officially drawn a close to major military operations against Islamic State, stating at a conference that Iraqi forces were “in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border.” Within a year, Haider Al-Abadi was out of office. He had won the war but lost the peace in post-conflict Iraq.
Photo By: MSgt Russell Scalf, USAF: AL UDEID, Qatar - Iraqi Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons conduct a training mission over Iraq May 26, 2019. The Coalition Aviation Advisory and Training Team in partnership with the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, provides training, advising and assistance in addition to building partner capacity for Iraqi Army Aviation Command, Iraqi Air Defense Command and the Iraqi Air Force.
The damage was done by fighting in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, was extensive. Thousands of civilians were killed and wounded and bitter street-to-street fighting reduced Mosul’s historical and cultural building to rubble. Civilians were used as human shields by Islamic State as airstrikes, drone and suicide bombers and counter-insurgency combat battered the city. Nearly a year after the fighting concluded corpses of fighters and civilians were still being pulled from the rubble of gardens, mosques, buildings and ancient monuments. Resentment against the government was brewing as they neglected reconstruction in favour of elections, and even started planting their party flags on buildings in which bodies lay. “The politicians are holding electioneering feasts on top of the bodies,” said Shihab Ahmed, 28, a Mosul resident speaking to USA Today. “I’ve spent my whole life in the Old City. And while there are many historic buildings officials need to preserve and protect, the government should do something to help the volunteers who have been working so hard to clear the corpses out of this neighbourhood.”
As the stench of rotting flesh rose over Mosul, the process of rebuilding stalled. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimated that 138,000 houses were damaged or destroyed during the conflict. In Western Mosul, where fighting all-but destroyed the Old City, 5,300 houses remained in ruins. In April and July 2019, BBC and The New Humanitarian articles detailed how ordinary men, women and children lived in or were surrounded by the ruins of war. The NRC also reported that 300,000 civilians from Mosul remained displaced in July. It is a similar problem across other cities where those caught in Islamic State’s rampage and subsequent military operations to recover them have received little to no support from the Iraqi government despite pledges to rebuild Iraq. 6.7 million civilians remain in need of humanitarian aid across Iraq. As Annie Slemrod, The New Humanitarian’s Middle East Editor reported:
‘This year, critics knocked Iraq’s $112 million budget for allocating very little for reconstruction, and while people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by IS – or during the fight against the group – are eligible to apply for government compensation, the process is time-consuming, bureaucratic, and costly. It is not clear how many people have received significant payouts. Many people who have returned to cities like Mosul, Ramadi, and Fallujah, are rebuilding their homes and business without much help at all.’
In March, tragedy struck Mosul. A ferry just off of Umm Rabeen Island, just north of the city sank on Nowruz, the Kurdish New Year and Mother’s Day. Over 100 people drowned in the River Tigris and was a catalyst for protests against Nawfal al-Akoub, the governor of Nineveh province and Mosul, the provincial capital.
It was Iraq’s Grenfell Tower moment, a national tragedy. The boat was bloated with passengers, and the majority of passengers - mainly women and children - were swept down the fast-flowing River Tigris, swollen after the winter rains. The boat had been five times over capacity with around 200 people on board and effective safety measures were absent.
When the governor showed up at the scene of the accident, bricks were hurled at the convoy, shattering the glass of windshields and chants of “Thief, Thief, Thief!” were directed towards Nawfal Al-Ayoub. In his attempts to escape, his convoy accidentally ran over two relatives of the victims. It was a public relations disaster for Al-Akoub, worsened by accusations of corruption already directed at the governor. Less than a week after the sinking, the Nineveh’s court concluded that Al-Akoub and several other officials were suspected of abusing their powers and wasting public money, money better served to repair the social and economic fabric of Mosul and ensuring basic services - including transport had a proper investment.
Parliament had been swift to act, sacking Al-Akoub days after the sinking and issued an arrest warrant for the governor. Ayoub fled to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan to avoid capture. The military arrested the boat owners, Obeid Ibrahim Ali and Ryan Obeid Ibrahim. Emergency services, military personnel and volunteers searched down the river for missing bodies and a crisis cell was formed to investigate the accident. Included within the investigation was the commander of Nineveh Operations, head of the province’s police, and the president of Nineveh University. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi declared three days of national mourning, and Iraq was united in support of the victims of the accident. The ferry disaster, however, demonstrated how the neglect of Mosul’s residents had fatal consequences.
It was a symbol of the chronic failures of governance by the Iraqi government in the aftermath of the war with Islamic State, a war in which Mosul bore the brunt of the violence. Protests swept Mosul, and while both President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi acknowledged that "mismanagement, greed, corruption, and negligence” were at the heart of the ferry disaster, Al-Ayoub seemed to be a scapegoat for wider issues. It was discovered by Iraq’s Anti-Corruption Integrity Commission that during Al-Akoub’s tenure as governor that $60 million had been embezzled from the public purse in Mosul by officials close to him. $40 million of this had been designated for the reconstruction of Mosul. According to the ACIC report, only $6 million of this has been returned.
Corruption has been a source of instability for successive governments. In 2018, Iraq was ranked 168 out of 180 countries on the Corruption Index (joint with Venezuela and higher than the Democratic Republic of Congo). Officials have also struggled to curb rampant arms and drugs smuggling and human trafficking from which various militias and paramilitaries, including terrorist groups, have profited. This was a problem highlighted during fighting with Islamic State by several journalists covering the war, and it appears little changed. As funds for the reconstruction of Mosul vanished into the pockets of corrupt officials, so to did 25% of funds meant for Iraq’s electricity grids in 2015. Thousands gathered in protest at the atrocious electricity services shouting “All of you together to the court, all of you are thieves. Friday after Friday, we’ll get the corrupt out.” They urged Haider Al-Abadi to take direct control of the energy department to address the issues. A man was killed in the protests in Basra during the wave of protests in August 2015. In 2016, protesters organised several protests at the Green Zone where the government is located and occupied Parliament. Dozens were wounded as the government used live fire and tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters.
In Basra, where 118,000 were treated for drinking contaminated water, locals pointed to abject governance and corruption as to the decay of public services and adequate treatment of water by several government departments including the Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works’ water and sewage departments, and Ministry of Health and Environment. Where corruption spelt disaster in Mosul, a public health disaster unfolded in Basra. The crackdown by security forces was brutal both in July and September 2018. Dozens of protesters were killed, the internet was shut down and at-least fifteen government buildings were torched and ransacked, with petrol bombs reportedly being lobbed at some government institutions. The U.S consulate was forced to close, however, the wrath of the protesters was focused on Iran. The Iranian consulate in Basra was incinerated by groups of angry men and women angered by the government and militias brutal responses against civilians.
Activists organising protests have become targets for arrest and assassination in Basra. Sheikh Wisam Ghazrawi, an anti-corruption activist who had featured in the protests throughout the year was murdered by unidentified gunmen and Soad al-Ali, a prominent activist for women’s rights and who had helped organise protests was shot dead in broad daylight. Her husband was also badly wounded by the assassins. Adel Shaker El-Tamimi, close to Haider Al-Abadi and Shawki al-Haddad, an ally of Muqtada Al-Sadr were both assassinated by men with ties to pro-Iranian militias and Tehran in July and September respectively, the same months of major protests in Basra. According to British security officials speaking to The Telegraph, “Iran is intensifying its campaign of intimidation against the Iraqi government by using assassination squads to silence critics of Tehran.” Haddad, according to The Telegraph, who had close ties to Tehran had taken a nationalist turn, much like that of Muqtada Al-Sadr who has adopted nationalist populism and brought secularists and communists under his Shia umbrella. The impunity of the Shia paramilitary and military groups sponsored by Iran served to fuel resentment against Tehran’s influence in the south.
Baghdad’s shift towards a fragile peace has not escaped journalists who’d witnessed nothing but bloodshed since they started covering Iraq. The Independent noted in 2018 that ‘despite all these past horrors, life in Baghdad is returning to some form of normality in which staying alive is not the only preoccupation…Better still, the country may be coming to the end of a 40-year period of foreign and civil wars.’ In 2019, The Guardian, PBS and Reuters were reporting on Baghdad’s fairgrounds, dance scene and nightlife, including a cultural renaissance.
‘The capital has been quietly remaking its image,’ writes Raya Jalabi. ‘A heady mix of Baghdad’s burgeoning subcultures: bikers, gamers, (and) electronic dance music enthusiasts. What most had in common was they’d never been to a party like this in Iraq.’ Security checkpoints are slowly being removed. The young, the old, families were and seem determined to have a good time, and breathe after years and years of perpetual war and national strife. Whether it be picnicking or hanging with friends at university, children being able to go to school again without the threats of bombings and kidnap, Baghdad is demonstrating that it can be a city of peace, not simply a city of blood. ‘Few places on earth have enjoyed such relentlessly inevitable cycles of prosperity, cultural outpouring and descent into bloodletting,’ as Iraq.
The 2018 elections were relatively free of violence, by comparison to the brutality on display in Afghanistan during the 2019 elections. The 2018 Iraqi elections, ‘were the first elections in which sectarianism took a back seat to issues of good governance and the daily concerns of Iraqis. A range of parties formed cross-sectarian or nonsectarian coalitions to compete for votes.’ Iraq, once the most dangerous country on the planet, has experienced limited stability, by comparison to the bloodletting of 2006, the travails of the American occupation and the war with Islamic State. With a semblance of stability established by the victorious Iraqi army, old and new problems have come to the fore. As the continuing intifada has demonstrated, the internal issues facing the country and wider power struggles across the Middle East is a reminder that the shadow of violence is ever-present.
Baghdad is the pressure point of the current protests which have left at least 250 dead and thousands wounded and the spread of protests across the Sadr City and the Green Zone is a stark reminder of the fragility of Baghdad’s social and political fabric after decades of conflict. The violence dished out to activists and protesters by security and paramilitary groups such as the Emergency Response Division and the Popular Mobilisation Forces is a reminder of how the use and dependence of central government and its patrons on violence to establish order could pave the way for revanchist authoritarianism, a malevolent terror experienced under Saddam Hussein and former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Saddam after a period of stability where literacy and economy flourished eventually brought war, isolation and sanctions to the Iraqi people. Maliki brought despotism, incompetence and sectarian bloodshed.
By 2019, despite the decline in violence, the problems which have plagued Iraq for decades remained in place, and the barriers to addressing these concerns including kleptocracy, rampant corruption, incompetence and the competing interests of different political fiefdoms in Iraq weren’t resolving basic needs and rights. These competing political and economic interests have done little to solve the crises of Iraq’s climate emergency, poisoned water supplies and lack of electricity. The combination has become a catalyst for the intifada in Iraq, the largest spontaneous uprising since the Iraqi government has had to deal with since the intifada in 1991 after Saddam’s catastrophic invasion of Kuwait.
September and October 2019 seemed to be the tipping point for the main political powers in Iraq. Nationalists and secularists supported by poorer Shia communities who had been impacted hardest by bad politics and economic mismanagement took to the streets of Najaf, Basra, Nasiriyah, Samawa, Amarah, Diwaniyah, Karbala and in districts of Baghdad such as Sadr City and the Green Zone. Thousands of Iraqi flags painted the streets in red, black and white. The demands were the same as before; overhaul of the country's political system and an end to official corruption. Again, chants were directed at Iranian overreach in Iraq, particularly by the Quds Forces, Iran’s de-facto special forces. “Iran out, out” and other anti-Iranian slogans rang through Baghdad’s protests.
In post-Saddam politics, there have been many struggles between different Shia groups, particularly the rich and poor, particular Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and central government during the American occupation of Iraq. However for Iran though, to witness such virulent rage against their presence in Iraq will have caught Khamenei and the leadership of the Quds off-guard. As Borzou Daragahi noted after the first wave of protests in October, ‘Iran, which often takes up the anti-imperialist banner against western powers, got a taste of its own medicine. The protesters this time were not the Sunnis who fought against Baghdad’s governments or the smattering of whiskey-swilling liberals still in Iraq, but kids from pious Shia neighbourhoods who were stomping on the Iranian flag.’ The Iranians, Iraqi Shia paramilitaries and militia groups, and the segments of the political elite in Iraq found common ground in the early days of October: protect their political and economic interests at a price. The amalgamation of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella of pro-Iranian militias, with the Iraqi army has made it difficult for onlookers to understand who is killing the protestors.
Repressive measures, already bloody, escalated into all-out war against the protesters and activists across central and south Iraq. Scenes reminiscent of President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on Syria’s civilians in 2011, the crushing of the Bahrain uprising and Israeli snipers gunning down Palestinians in 2018 filled social media screens and news feeds. At least 150 were killed in two days, more were detained and thousands were wounded as the Emergency Response Division, Popular Mobilisation Forces and units of the wider police and military used truncheons, stun grenades, smoke grenades, tear gas, snipers and guns to brutalise and kill people crying out for water and basic needs. First responders were targeted and threatened by the police, and many people refused to enter the hospital even when wounded for fear of arrest. In late October, a further 70 were killed and 2000 wounded. The same strategy deployed in early October was reused; snipers, live ammunition and tear gas. Snipers caught by the protesters were badly beaten by a mob with chairs and flags, one dead protestor had a tear gas grenade lodged in his skull as masked shadowy figures with rifles fire from rooftops. Blood pours from head wounds of those struck down by sniper fire and vehicles run over protestors in Basra (it is unclear whether they are militia or police).
As President Donald Trump gloated and bragged about the death of Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Iraq is on the brink of revolutionary change. Much as the death of Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al-Qa’ida, was overshadowed by the ignition of the Arab Revolutions in 2011 which swept North Africa and the Middle East, Baghdadi’s death comes at a time when countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan have been shaken by mass protests as wars and humanitarian crisis rage continue unabated in Yemen, Libya and Syria. In this context Baghdadi’s death, while symbolic and important, appears to be a blip in historical changes occurring in Iraq. His death, and the role played by Iraqi intelligence operatives in locating the deceased Islamic State leader, has barely impacted current developments in his home country as central and south Iraq convulses after a month of protest.
Factions involved in the Iraqi crackdown include Munathamat Badr (or Badr Brigades or Badr Organization), Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigades, formerly Mahdi army), ‘Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous) and Kata’ib Hizbullah (Hizbullah Brigades) who received their training from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and General Qassem Suleimani have targeted protesters if they attack their political institutions or threaten the status quo which has allowed them to carve south Iraq up into their own fiefdoms like Middle Age warlords.
This state-sponsored violence partly explains why Sunni-dominated cities and towns, recently liberated from Islamic State, have not experienced major upheaval. Speaking to Al-Monitor a resident of Mosul explained why: “It is because, in the eyes of some people, we are seen as the Islamic State [which imposed a violent, extreme version of Sunni Islam]. If we protest, they will take us off the streets and throw us in secret prisons. Yet we are still oppressed and our situation is as bad as everyone else’s and even worse." The message for the Sunni political class and average Sunni in Iraq from Baghdad is that security forces will crack down on them harder than their fellow Iraqis in the south.
Photo By: U.S. Army Spc. William Lockwood:CAMP TAJI - Iraqi soldiers enrolled in the Junior Leaders Course stack up against a wall before clearing a building at Camp Taji, Iraq, Feb. 9, 2016. The soldiers participated in the building clearing training to improve their fundamental infantry skills. This training is part of the overall Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve building partner capacity mission to increase the military capacity of Iraqi Security Forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The memories of the Islamic State are raw in Iraq. Hundreds of mass graves are being discovered across Iraq since the civil war concluded and cities in Sunni-dominated areas have been broken by years of conflict. Civilians and Islamic State POWs were massacred in Mosul by security forces, mainly militiamen in police uniform in the final stages of the war. Sympathisers and collaborators, real or concocted, were hunted down and thrown into prison. In 2018 and 2019, torture remained widespread in Mosul’s main detention centres. At Faisaliya detention facility run by the Interior Ministry (who also control the Emergency Response Division killing protestors), men, women and children interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that four Interior Ministry officers took part in torturing prisoners to extract confessions that they were with Islamic State. Prisoners were beaten with plastic pipes and metal cables, stamped on, suspended from the ceiling and waterboarded. Others had the soles of their feet beaten raw, were branded and burned or had their genitals smashed by pipes. Several people died in custody.
It is a time of suspicion and mistrust, with the Counter-Terrorism Service, the ERD and Sunni and Kurdish militia fighting an Islamic State guerrilla war. The insurgency of Islamic State continuing to utilise trademark car bombs and kidnap to terrorise the local populations is still affecting civilians and soldiers. In January 2018, 38 were killed and over a hundred wounded in a double suicide bombing in Baghdad, an atrocity which would have rocked the European continent for years had it occurred there.
This has not stopped civilians from taking to social media and digital outlets to voice their support for protesters across Iraq. However, despite the flagrant corruption in Mosul, the threat of torture and the scars of the war with Islamic State are a deterrent for civilians, politicians and activists to join the protest. “We will continue to demonstrate online, making sure our message is clear, and those that express their hope are kept safe," said Tahany Salih, an activist from Mosul in conversation with Middle East Eye. Mosalwis are still hurting from the state of devastation that Islamic State left behind, and the government has done nothing but neglect us. If we protest, we run the risk of being labelled, of being accused of being like Islamic State, the Saudis, Baathists, and so on." Social media activists in the north and south-west of Iraq, the Sunni heartlands risk being hunted down or threatened with arrest by the authorities in an attempt to muzzle support for protesters in Basra and Baghdad. Internet was suspended in Kirkuk and security forces were deployed to Mosul.
The challenge facing post-Saddam Iraq is that all the symptoms which fed the rise of Islamic State and the powerful Shia paramilitaries still exist. For change to take place, there must be genuine political, economic and religious reform, promises that have been made and broken by successive governments. Democracy in Iraq, to some Iraqis, is a front for impunity. The activists who threaten these interests and their power are repressed with bullets, imprisonment and torture. Such an environment is ripe for revolution and intifada.
As historian Fawaz Gerges writes in ISIS: A History, “Islamic State is a result of decades of dictatorship, failed governance and development, and abject poverty, made worse by ongoing foreign intervention. Islamic State is a product of an organic crisis in Arab politics.” All four factors mentioned by Gerges exist in abundance in Iraq. Iraq’s problems may no longer be equivalent to that of Syria, Yemen or Libya yet its challenges could become similar to those in Nigeria, Mexico or Pakistan where stability reigns in the capital, but in different provinces, it is extremely volatile and government power and influence is weak. This inability to control Iraq without resorting to extreme bloodshed has been a regular theme in Iraq’s modern history experienced by the Ottomans, the British, Saddam Hussein, the Americans, the current Iraqi government and to some extent Islamic State and the Iranians. Threaded throughout Iraq’s turbulent 20th century are foreign intervention and poor governance.
For policymakers, this historical deja vu can seem daunting but it detracts from the reality that Iraq’s challenges are grounded in very contemporary crises which are impacting the rest of the planet. Islamic State’s use of social media to fuel its terror, the chaos brought on by leaps and bounds made in digital technology, the bankruptcy of neoliberalism, mass protests, the climate emergency destroying Iraq’s environment, record inequalities in wealth and income, the rise of oligarchies and the super-rich, anti-establishment protests sweeping the world and cyberspace, and insurgencies from the periphery. These are current issues affecting the world in parallel forms and different degrees. In Iraq, many of these challenges are turbo-charged and wedded to the legacy of a Forty Years’ War. Where the United Kingdom had a record-breaking heatwave of 38.1C, Iraq’s population cooked in 48C - 50C in July. Iraq is a microcosm of the global crisis.
Post-Saddam Iraq’s political class is rotten to the core and its floundering officials are not alone. As revolutions and protests from Algeria to Sudan to Lebanon to Iraq have demonstrated, the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa are alive and well. Tapping into Iraq's vast energy reserves and oil wealth will not be enough. Pouring investments into reconstruction and infrastructure while curbing oil over-dependency, diversifying the Iraqi economy and introducing practical policies and reforms to eradicate corruption and provide decent public services will be key to rebuilding Iraq.
There are various challenges. Negotiating the control of trade routes with militias and tribes, ensuring the multiple ethnic, sectarian and tribal groups across Iraq are not alienated and integrating them into a balanced political system which respects the autonomy and giving them a voice in central government while isolating spoilers, terrorists, and separatists are only the beginning of the political solutions. Pouring money into university and educational institutions, introducing sustainable agricultural, technological, and ecological projects to combat water and food insecurity, ensuring the effective supply of clean water and consistent electricity, empowering opportunities for youth and introducing measures, religious and social, to reduce and combat extremist violence in alignment with security and defence are socio-economic projects which will be an enormous undertaking.
These development goals will have to walk hand-in-hand with economic, social and military aid which reintegrates millions of fighters, Islamic State fighters and refugees into Iraqi society, rebuilding infrastructure while simultaneously reducing the influence of the deeply-embedded black market economy and the criminal underworld. All this will have to be done in a society hostile to external intervention and craving independence from regional power games while healing a generation moulded and surrounded by a cycle of poverty, misery and violence stoked by war and occupation. To be free from sectarianism and corruption created by toxic governance, Iraq must win the peace. It will take generations to accomplish.