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IRAQ AFTER ISIS:
SHIAMILITANCYAND IRANIAN INFLUENCE
Hayder al-Khoei
1
T
he fall of Mosul to the so-called “Islamic State” in June 2014 was a watershed
moment in Iraq’s modern history not just because the terrorist group was able
to rout tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and federal police but also because it
came at a time when Iraq’s political parties were deadlocked in trying to form the new
government after the successful general elections held in April of that year. The crisis
and its immediate aftermath set in motion forces that may remain in Iraq for years – if
not decades – to come.
The collapse of the Iraqi armed forces and the pleas of the Iraqi caretaker government
for military assistance sped up and consolidated existing trends in Iraq; the increased
influence of Iran as well as the empowerment and legitimization of Shia militia groups
that rely on Iran for support.
Sensing weakness in Baghdad, the United States refused to offer military assistance
to Iraq because it wanted to see the fall of Prime Minister Maliki. This happened despite
the real danger of the Iraqi capital falling to ISIS militants. In March 2015, the United
States publicly acknowledged that their assessment in Iraq last summer was that Baghdad
could have fallen “within 72 hours” just a few days after Mosul fell to ISIS and they
prepared for the worst by evacuating 1,500 staff from the US Embassy in Baghdad. Brett
McGurk, the Deputy Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL,
stated at the American University of Iraq’s Sulaimani Forum, that without the effective
1 Associate Fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, a London-based
international affairs think tank.