Stopping death spiral in Iraq

The dust is beginning to settle, and it is clear the historical city of Mosul is a wasteland – just like many districts of that other ancient West Asian city, Aleppo. With temperatures in region topping 50 degrees Celsius, there have been consistent reports of the stench of rotting dead bodies filling the air in Mosul.

According to Kurdish intelligence estimates revealed to Britain’s The Independent newspaper, a shocking 40,000 civilians have been killed in the gruelling nine-month battle to retake the city from the Islamic State (IS). These people were killed, according to the sources, by Iraqi forces on the ground, by relentless coalition airstrikes, and by IS militants stopping people from fleeing.

Hoshyar Zebari, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish politician hailing from Mosul, who used to be Iraq’s foreign minister, gave these figures to the newspaper. He quoted the intelligence service of the Kurdistan Regional Government, which has a strong reputation, given its role is ensuring peace and quiet in Iraqi Kurdistan at a time when the rest of the country was in flames.

Mosul, a cosmopolitan city of 2.5 million, fell to the terror group in June 2014. The world was left shocked and bewildered when the Iraqi army units (said to be 30,000 to 50,000-strong) collapsed in a few days in the face of an all-out assault by just 800 to 1,200 IS militants, despite the billions of dollars spent on their training and arms purchases from the US and other Western powers. As a result, the city came under IS’ reign of terror for three years until its ‘liberation’ by Iraqi forces in July this year.

Even if the death toll is half the reported number, it is still shocking. Adding fuel to the fire are the seemingly endless reports and videos coming out of Mosul of horrific torture and extrajudicial killings by Iraqi forces of suspected IS sympathisers and innocent civilians. The fact that some of th­ese soldiers feel no fear when recording their crimes and distributing them suggests a strong sense of impunity.

At the heart of the current security problem in Iraq is the treatment of the sizeable Sunni minority, members of which dominated the country during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Under the present Shiite-led Iraqi regime – widely seen as sectarian and corrupt – Sunnis have consistently complained of discrimination in all aspects of lives.

However, elements of the Sunni Muslim minority are not without blame. Many Sunni extremist groups have for years launched a series of bombings targeting Shiite neighbourhoods in major cities across Iraq, especially the capital Baghdad, massacring thousands. This in turn led to the rise of Iran-backed Shiite militias and death squad responsible for unspeakable crimes against Sunni civilians. The cycle of revenge killings became unstoppable.

Sunni grievances

The current reports of abuse of Mosul’s population by Iraqi forces are not only morally repugnant but also politically counter-productive.

The Iraqi government kno­ws very well it is in its own interest that it makes serious attempts to address the Sunni minority’s concerns in order to end the perpetual state of war and instability in the country. Only the trust and support of the community will help Baghdad counter extremist groups that feed off Sunni grievances.

Their marginalisation in Iraqi society will spawn more extremists that the government will have to fight in the future. But, tragically, as far as the Iraqi government is concerned, the agenda of the sectarian militias embedded within the security forces seems to take precedence over the greater public good.

Even the US (whose policies right since the 2003 invasion have played no small part in Iraq’s current imbroglio) has repeatedly demanded that its allied government in Baghdad change course. Lt Gen Stephen Town­send, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force, told the BBC that the Iraqis needed to unite to ensure IS was defeated across the rest of Iraq.

But he added that the government needed to reach out to the Sunni Arab minority. “If we are to keep...IS 2.0 from emerging, the Iraqi government is going to have to do something pretty significantly different.”

The defeat of the IS in Mosul presents the Iraqi government with an opportunity to rebuild the country in such a way that a group like that is never allowed to gain traction again. Sadly, if history is an indicator, the government will let this opportunity go to waste.

(The writer is an editor at The Delma Institute, an international affairs research house, UAE)