IRAQ AT A CROSSROADS

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Hayder al-Khoei
response of Iraqi people and the historic fatwa by Ayatollah Sistani, the future of Iraq
would have been in doubt.2
Iranian vs. US backing
The Iranians, in stark contrast to the US, immediately sent weapons, advisors and
mobilized their own forces to protect Baghdad from the ISIS threat. The Iranians also fully
supported Maliki’s bid to stay in power for a third term after he won the elections with an
impressive margin. Maliki won a clear plurality, over 700,000 personal votes in Baghdad
and three times the number of seats his nearest rivals won, but he still did not have the
majority needed to form a government nor was he able to form a coalition government
with the other political parties. More crucially, he was out of favour with the Shia religious
establishment in Najaf – headed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani – which wanted to see
a change at the top.3
Eventually, the Iranians were forced to abandon their hopes of having Maliki stay on
as prime minister after Sistani sent clear messages to both Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party
and Tehran that a third term was a red line. The Shia Islamist parties had to agree on an
alternative candidate. Regardless of the political impasse, Baghdad found itself in the eye
of the ISIS storm. On one hand, the Americans were reluctant to offer any help whilst,
on the other, the Iranians continued and increased their military assistance, mainly due to
their own national security interests.
Speaking to this clear juxtaposition, a senior Iraqi politician said that whilst both the
Americans and Iranians are strategic allies, the Iranians did not let Iraq down in its time
of need. By immediately coming to Baghdad’s rescue, the Iranians made themselves
indispensable to the Iraqi government even after Maliki stepped down and was replaced
by Hayder al-Abadi. Whatever leverage Iran may have lost due to being the last player to
let go of Maliki, they more than made up for this through its extensive military assistance
to Baghdad. Besides sending arms and assistance to both the regional government in
Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad, Tehran also increased the mobilization
of the Iraq Shia militias that had already been active in both Syria and Iraq.
Another interesting development to note in Iraq is the increased coordination between
the US and Iran when it comes to fighting ISIS in Iraq. Though neither side will admit
publicly to coordination in Iraq, it has become clear since the liberation of Amerli and
Tikrit in the north that neither the US nor Iran can fight ISIS alone in Iraq without the
help of the other.
The US and Iran have an extremely awkward relationship in Iraq. Unlike in Syria, they
share both common enemies and common friends. Many analysts view the relationship
as “coordinated deconfliction” – being aware of each other’s movements in Iraq and
preventing potential clashes – but whilst this may have been the case in the summer of
2014, it is certainly no longer the case today. It has gone beyond mere deconfliction and
2 See: Strategy to defeat Daesh; end game or seeds for new conflict. Available in:
watch?v=_ZGjCTuxIN8, 12 March, 2015.
3 Al-Khoei H (2014). Iraq’s Maliki: Out of favour with Shia allies? Al-Jazeera, 30 July.