More than a decade after a US-led coalition drove out Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda fighters from Fallujah during a brutal offensive in 2004, the current situation in the Western Iraqi city offers a sobering illustration of what American involvement in the region has meant in the long-term. For the two years that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has maintained control of Fallujah, it hasn’t faced any significant armed opposition from within. This drastically changed when, on February 19, in the first notable episode of armed opposition since ISIL first took the city, Sunni tribesmen attacked ISIL militants, burning down one of the group’s headquarters.
Unfortunately, despite such glimmers of resistance, ISIL continues to dominate most of Western Iraq, including Fallujah. The deteriorating humanitarian situation in the city, exacerbated by the Iraqi military’s relentless military siege, is a reflection of its political instability and insecurity. Local officials report that “food has become a weapon” under ISIL control, as the group seeks to use starvation as a collective punishment in retaliation for the recent attack. Yet, in spite of such harsh ramifications and limited results, the Sunni offensive carries crucial implications for how local resistance to ISIL control could evolve, and how the US must adjust its foreign policy accordingly.
ISIL’s draconian response to the recent attack ignores the significance, and even reinforces the root causes, of Sunni rebellion in the Anbar province. In fact, the Iraqi military contends that the Sunni uprising was the eruption of a “volcano of resentment” that had been building up within Fallujah largely because of the humanitarian situation. This claim goes so far as to assert that civilians within the city are waiting for more security forces before they can effectively “carry out a revolution.”
Examining a similar “revolution” that took place in the Anbar province in 2006 — the Anbar Awakening — may help us understand the Sunnis’ potential role in the fight against ISIL. During the Iraq War, numerous special operations and airstrikes from 2004 to 2006 failed to halt al-Qaeda’s consolidation of power in the country. In a manner comparable to that of ISIL today, al-Qaeda utilized force to “terrorize whole towns, collect taxes, and recruit fighters.” Things changed with the Anbar Awakening: the combined effect of financial incentives by the US military and Al Qaeda’s strategy of extracting resources from the local population convinced Sunni tribes to turn against al-Qaeda. The Anbar Awakening, also known as the Sunni Awakening, proved to be a turning point in the American’s fight against ISIS. Just as the Anbar Awakening forced al-Qaeda into the shadows, the current situation in Iraq heavily indicates that only another “awakening” from within the country’s Sunni population could destabilize ISIL’s regional hegemony. In fact, as early as 2014, retired Colonel Derek Harvey and senior Iraqi analyst Michael Pregent argued that “any US strategy that lacks a Sunni awakening is unlikely to bring a full defeat of ISIL.”
Still, there are three major challenges that make the current situation unlikely to be a simple repetition of 2006. First, Iraq’s Shiite government is actively obstructing the international community’s attempts to help Sunni tribesmen. US attempts to supply arms and training to Sunnis in the region have been disrupted by Iraq’s Shiite dominated military. Tribes have reported that US-shipped weapons intended for them are instead being hoarded in Baghdad. Furthermore, 1400 troops sent by President Obama to help form a Sunni-dominated national guard have instead been diverted to train the Iraqi military.
Second, ISIL continues to enjoy the support of many Sunnis who were disillusioned by the aftermath of the first awakening, since the stabilization of the country in 2006 paved the way for the US hand-over of power to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Shiite-dominated government passed brutally repressive policies against Sunnis during his six year rule. These policies exacerbated sectarian tensions that were already running high following the 2003 deposition of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni government. Political analyst Majid Hussein estimates that at least 70 percent of Sunnis in Anbar support or are fighting for ISIL, an important reason why the group was able to take control of the province so quickly. Tribesmen not only provide ISIL with cash, weapons and intelligence, but they also extort money from people attempting to leave the region. Although there was some level of Sunni support for al-Qaeda before the 2006 awakening, it isn’t comparable to the level of current support for ISIL, which is motivated by a very recent, bitter history. The Iraqi government does not do much to help improve the US image either: In response to promises of American training and arms to Sunni tribesmen, which have been blocked by the Iraqi government, prominent Sunni leader Abdullah Humedi al-Boesa angrily declared, “The Americans have no credibility. We no longer trust what they say.”
Third, ISIL is aware of recent history and is actively deterring another awakening. Although there is significant Sunni cooperation with ISIL, the militant group has brutally punished Sunni tribes that have decided not to support it. As David Patel of Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies reports, ISIL has taken repressive steps towards tribes who played a part in the 2006 awakening, or were suspected to be cooperating with the Iraqi or Syrian governments. One infamous example was ISIL’s slaughter of 700 al-Sheitat tribesmen as a warning to other Sunni tribes. Some, like Fallujah’s former mayor Issa al-Issawi, fear that ISIL could retaliate with “mass slaughter” against insurgents in the city unless the international community pledges and provides support and protection to the local population. While no such massacre has been reported, ISIL has since detained more than 100 people from local Sunni tribes responsible for the February uprising.
And yet, although ISIL is aware of recent history, it doesn’t seem to have taken many of its lessons to heart. Just as Sunnis initially supported al-Qaeda for a shared anti-Shiite agenda, but were eventually alienated by the group’s extremism, ISIL’s actions over the past few months and policies in Fallujah may trigger a similar shift. Since the summer of 2015, a vocal group of Sunni leaders have called for Sunnis to support Iraqi forces in retaking Ramadi and Fallujah. The recent Fallujah uprising is a salient example of these shifting perceptions: despite the opposition being carried out by Sunni tribesmen, Rageh Barakat of the Anbar provincial council’s security committee explains that these attacks were not coordinated by traditional “tribal structures.” Instead, they were largely facilitated by young disillusioned Sunni’s retaliating. The Fallujah uprising demonstrates that even without formal leadership or organization, ISIL’s extremism is ensuring that Sunni opposition to the group can emerge.
However, there are also ways that the US and the international community should actively rethink their strategies in light of Fallujah. ISIL’s rise was no accident, and neither is Sunni support for the militant group. ISIL’s domination over Iraq would not have expanded so rapidly had it not been for the US restructuring Iraq’s government at the expense of the Sunnis. As Sunni leader Faisal Essawi bitterly remarked, “ISIL did not come from the moon…Part of our people became Daesh [ISIL]. Because of corruption. Because of injustice. Because of the culture of hate.” Yet, the US seems to not fully acknowledge this truth. Even in regions that have been re-captured from ISIL, the Sunnis are still gripped by fear of the Iraqi government, the same grievances that helped ISIL seize control in Anbar two years ago.
The US needs to realize that its current strategy for fighting ISIL in Iraq is myopic: military gains achieved by the US-led coalition mean little without political infrastructure to reinforce and maintain that progress. Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Iraq, explains that it was less the military strength of ISIL and more the political weakness of its enemies that let the militant group take control. As he elaborates, “There is no political architecture that will convince any Sunni over the age of 3 that he or she has a future with the Iraqi state.” The Iraqi government has been a major party in the fight against ISIL and wants the group out of the region as much as any of its allies. However, its interference with US support for Sunni opposition to ISIL on the ground indicates the Shiite government’s prejudice that all Sunnis support ISIL–a dangerous sectarian bias.
The 2006 Awakening was catalyzed not by “a desire for vast sectarian conflict, but by tribal interests and political grievances.” The present situation is no different: if the US wants to empower the Sunni in their struggle against ISIL and see even a glimpse of a Sunni awakening, efforts must start at the political level. Alon Ben-Meir, Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, argues that the Sunnis will not make sacrifices against ISIL to benefit a Shiite-dominated state without knowing what the future has in store for them. He concludes that believing “Iraq somehow can be stitched together following the defeat of ISIL is a gross illusion.” Nevertheless, there are two viable solutions for this situation.
First, while the US doesn’t necessarily need to ensure an independent Sunni state within Iraq like Ben-Meir suggests, ensuring immediate Sunni inclusion within the Iraqi government is essential. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations agrees with Ben-Meir that a deal with the Iraqi government brokered by the US and the international community to ensure Sunni inclusiveness in the government is a prerequisite for seeing any meaningful engagement by Sunni tribes in the struggle against ISIL. For Ben-Meir, this also means an international effort to ensure and monitor a more equitable distribution of oil profits within Iraq.
Secondly, the US needs to rectify its current policy of negotiating exclusively with the Iraqi government, and instead work directly with Sunni tribes. As the State Department admits, “the US is not directly involved in training troops.” This means that the US government negotiates initiatives like supplying arms to Sunnis and the creation of a Sunni-dominated national guard with the Shiite Iraqi central government instead of the people who would be most affected by such initiatives. The necessity for a new meeting with Sunni leaders after Fallujah is especially crucial given that the Sunni leaders the US met with in 2014 are no longer the “decision-makers”: most have since been killed or defected. The US not only needs to ensure that the Sunnis have a seat at the table, but also that it is communicating directly and proactively with them.
As one woman interviewed in Fallujah remarked, Sunnis are “caught between the injustice of ISIL and an unknown future with the government that will accuse us of being with ISIL.” It is the obligation of the US and the international community to create an alternative third scenario. Doing so may be difficult, but in its efforts to fight a terrorist group that draws its strength from sectarian divides, the US must work to bridge these divides. In June of 2015, President Obama admitted that a large obstacle in America’s fight against ISIL in Iraq is the fact that “we don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis.” The US understands how important it is to mobilize the Iraqi public in the fight against ISIL, but this entails supporting those who feel marginalized within that society. The Sunnis have made their crucial role in the fight against ISIL clear; what’s left for the international community to do is to reignite a long-overdue discussion of the Sunnis’ rights in an Iraq against and after ISIL.