2. McCormac 2
The US Relations with Iraq have always been on rocky ground. With the aftermath of the Gulf
War in 1991 still being felt in Iraq, sanctions placed on the country by the United States did little After
September 11, and tensions finally flared up and the 2003 Iraq War broke out. The fall of the Saddam
regime following the 2003 Iraq war in an attempt to democratize Iraq, as well as destroy Al Qaeda in
Iraq, did nothing but simply open Pandora's Box in the Middle East. It has resulted in a landslide of
issues to arise in the Middle East with two large result springing up. This is the implosion of Iraq, and
the rise of ISIS in Iraq.
After the September 11th
atatcks in 2001, it was almost very clear that the United States was
going to hit the Millde East hard, but no one really expected Iraq to be one of the biggest targets in the
war on terrror. Saddam already went up against the United States in the Gulf War in 1990 and lost
horribly which lead to sanctions and no-fly zones to be enstated. It brings about the question as to why
Saddam would agitate the United States before 9/11, and why he would reisist when history is bound to
repeat itslef. The reason for this is due to the fact that after his loss in the Iran-Iraq War, and another
crushing defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam was very despareate and was dealing with insurections and
uprisings from the sunnis and northern Iraqi Kurds who saw him as weak. Also many American
officials saw Iraq as a rogue actor that needed to be eliminated, and by doing so, this would also
destroy any connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda in Iraq, as well as send a message to any other
non democratic countries that would dare challenge the United States, especially China. Saddam was
despareate for power and therefore did every thing he could to assert his power and dominance by
kicking out UN inspectors in 1998, violently lashing out at the Kurds and Sunni msulims with military
attacks by his Republican Guard, and continuing to turn his nose up at the United States. He still saw
the American defeat in Vietnam as a sign that the American People would not be able to stomach
3. McCormac 3
another war, especialy one with a country they just invaded, making it seem as though they were
incompetitn their first time around. He never belived that in 2002, the United states was gearing up to
invade Iraq, and at most Saddam expected another airstrike and missile strike similar to Operation
Desert Fox. He saw a “military superpower that was afraid to use its ground forces, and over relied
upon air power after Vietnam” (Wing, “Musings on Iraq). Unfortunately for Saddam, the United States
did invade Iraq, ousted him entirely in under a month, and left Iraq to to deal with a broken government
as well as a festering Iraqi Civil War, and due to this, our stay in Iraq lasted longer than expected,
finally resulting in the drug out unfavorable conflict just as Saddam had predicted would happen.
Once Saddam was gone, the United States learned that the Iraqi National Congress was hated in
Iraq, causing the plan of keeping the government alive and kicking to backfire and completely
collapsed. At this point, the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq were killing one another simply for being
Sunnis and Shiites, and this erupted into another Iraqi Civil war, with various militias fighting for
control over Iraq, and the alienation of the Sunni population in Iraq with the aid of Al Qaeda in Iraq
once the Sunnis began killing the American forces stationed in Iraq. In response to this violent
outburst by the Sunnis, America handed over Iraq to the Shiites, and the worst possible ones too,
causing them to unbeknownstly support Shiite and Kurdish oppression of the Sunnis. This mad dash to
save Iraq from militant jihadist rule and oppression resulted in a failed state to be propped up, with
elections being held in 2004 and 2005, with atrocious turn out by the Sunnis who believed the election
was rigged against them, resulting in a Shiite victory and the empowerment of Shiite militias. The
wealth from Iraqi oil was funneled into Shiite hands, and used the security services to wage a secrete
war against the Sunnis. The only group to cooperate with American forces was the Iraqi Kurds but
only in hopes of America granting them their own independent country in Northern Iraq if they worked
4. McCormac 4
with them. As a last ditch effort, Bush deployed an additional 30,000 troops in hopes of securing the
Iraqi people, reforming the Iraqi security force, reintegrating the Sunni population, and reforming the
entirety of the Iraqi government. Even with all the time, money, and US troops thrown into Iraq, it was
still not enough to prevent the collapse of the US instated government in 2009
Even with enormous strides made in the Iraqi infrastructure, the country was still a long
distance away from reaching full stability. The election of the prime minister in 2010 was rigged and
resulted in an almost stable government to become corrupt, and in 2011, President Obama makes the
order to pull out all US troops from Iraq and leaving 3,000 troops behind in order to continue training
and supervising the Iraqis even though the necessary number of troops still needed to be deployed in
order to continue training and supervising was roughly 25,000. The measly 3,00 troops the United
States was willing to keep stationed was considered meaningless and a waste of time and effort by
many Iraqi politicians. With US forces gone in the end of 2011, militant groups began to flow into
Iraq, and death and corruption once again rampantly infected the country. Over the next two years, the
issues became worse and worse, and the corruptly reelected Nouri al-Maliki did nothing but simply
make the issue at hand degrade into an even bigger problem, which eventually gave rise to the Islamic
State.
The Islamic State was not some radical movement that simply began over night with the hopes
of purifying the Islamic community by attacking Islamic and religious minorities, and hell bent on
enforcing Islamic beliefs. The fact of the matter is that they were always in Iraq, but went by a
different name. Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, or more commonly known as Al Qaeda in
Iraq, was the main oponent US troops spent their remaining years, up until their removal in 2011,
trying to destroy as well as prepare the Iraqi military to fight. In 2004, Al Qaeda in Iraq breifly
5. McCormac 5
changed their name to the Majlis Shura al-Mujahedin,and were led by current leader of ISIS,Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi. In 2006, they merged with several Jihadist fighter groups and were renamed Majlis Shura
al-Mujahedin. It wasn't until 2013 that they began calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS), after they gained a larger presence in Iraq and Syria. Al-Baghdadi now currently refers to
himself as “Caliph Ibrahim” and took full contorl of Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2010 where he launched many
waves of terrorism against Iraqi security forces, US troops, stationed in Iraq, various Shiite groups, the
Iraqi governemnt itslef, as well as many Sunni leaders who worked with the Iraqi government. It
wasnt until 2011, with the removal of US troops from Iraq under the orders of United States President
Barack Obama, that ISIS really began gaining headway and becoming the thorn in the world's side that
it is today. This withdrawl signaled the end of any real and serious engagements in Iraq as well as the
attempt to establish a stable hegemonic foothold in the Middle East. On top of the removal of US
troops from Iraq, current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the issue even worse and opened the
door for ISIS to deal a major blow to Iraq as a whole.
Nouri al-Maliki was worried that he would be overthrown at some point if he ever became inept
at his duty. Due to this paranoia, al-Maliki appointed political loyalists as senior officers in the
military and not seasoned compitent leaders who knew what they were doing, and also purposefully
kept the military weak and unable to function in order to prevent any chance of a coup. On top of this,
he enplaced laws that discriminated against the Sunni population of Iraq, causing deep hatred for him
by the Sunni population, and a low morale rate of the Sunnis in the Iraqi military, causing the Iraqi
army to become mainly Shiite. This caused a low interest in defendig a country that vehemently hates
them, resulting in a well equiped and highly trained military that had no desire to stay and die on the
battlefield, causing advanced weapons and armaments to fall into the hands of ISIS. On top of this, the
6. McCormac 6
entirety of the Iraqi military either sporadically retreated and allow ISIS to capture Iraqi cities such as
Mosul and Ramadi, or to go AWOL and join ISIS which is what many Sunnis did due to their inability
to play any vital roles in al-Maliki's Shiia led Iraq. Another big mistake made by al-Maliki was in
2009, when he left 83,000 out of the 100,000 Sunni Awakening Council fighters out of a job even when
he was asked by United States General Petraeus to higher them into the police force in places like
Fallujah or Mosul where they could take their knowledge of fighting Al Qaeda and put it to good use in
preventing Al Qaeda in Iraq from spreading and becoming stronger. Due to his niglect, many of these
83,000 Sunni fighters were targeted by Al Qaeda for reprisals and mainly killed. Al-Maliki himslef
even pursecuted many of these Sunnis for anti-government actions they committed long before joining
the Council fighters who fought for Iraq. Political wise, al-Maliki chose to favor the Shiite populated
southern part of Iraq, providing the best of the Iraqi government's goods and services to them, while at
the same time completely neglecting the Sunni northern part of Iraq, completely alientating that part of
the country, politically dividing Iraq into the Sunni north and Shiite south. He would also go on to
declare Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi to be a traitor and a terrorist even though no
evidence was provided and he gave him no due process. In 2010 al-Maliki froze the voting of the
Sunnis in favor of the Shiite coalition which deeply angered the Sunnis who had the largest party in
Iraqi parliament yet had no power due to al-Maliki's actions. This caused an even bigger rift between
the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq further dividing the country. When the Arab spring reached the doors of
Iraq and both the Shiite and Sunni youth protested against a third term for al-Maliki. It wasnt until
most of the Sunni population had joined ISIS that al-Maliki finaly resigned, however at this point the
political and societal damage he had caused was too great, and when the time for the Islamic State to
strike finally came, they rolled right through any Iraqi resistance.
7. McCormac 7
They took the Iraqi govenrment by surprise by capturing vast amounts of Iraqi territory,
inhabited by Sunni majorities, and killing over 20,000 Iraqi soldiers, police, and others who would
associate themselves with the Iraqi government, within the first eight months of 2014. On top of this
about two-million Iraqis were displaced from their homes due to this massive backlash from the
Islamic State. Although supported publicly by such figures of Al Qaeda like Osama Bin Laden and
Zawahiri, privately they did not approve of al-Baghdadi's antics in Iraq. Zawahiri even chastized al-
Baghdadi for his brutal methods and actions, beliving that such acts would only alienate the group
further from the larger Muslim community whom they were trying to being into Al Qaeda. On this
note, al-Baghdadi decided to break away completely from Al Qaeda, and both groups are now currently
competing for top dog our of all the Islamic Jihadist groups in the Middle East. ISIS encourages “Lone
Wolves” to carry out terroristic acts throughout the world by using social media outlets such as twitter,
facebook, and so on. Al-Maliki's one track mind on obtaining and retaining power left him vulnerable
and unaware of the rise of Islamic Sate in his own home. By 2010, Iraq officially fell apart at the
seems and lost all ground it had made politically and militarily. He pursecuted all former Baathist
party members, except his freinds, which drove them into the arms of ISIS, whom have recently used
degraded forms of mustard gas which is assumed to be from stockpiles kept hidden by Saddam. He
began referring to himself as the preeminent military leader, and after electorial results showed him
losing, he demanded a recount in order to win re-election, and removed anti-coruption officials from
their positions. During the protests agaisnt al-Maliki's position of prime minister and agaisnt the
corruption in the Iraqi government, al-Maliki labeled the peaceful protestors as terrorists and had his
security forces and hired thugs attack and severly beat the protestors. This in turn lead to the deaths of
a dozen protestors and over a thousand Iraqi citizens being arrested and tortured until the protesting
8. McCormac 8
ended. He abused his military power by ordering Iraqi officers to arrest individuals he was suspicious
of but had no solidified probable cause agaisnt them. His actions caused the comunications and trust
between the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to break down and erode, alienating the two parties and
destroying any sense of connections the millitary had with the people they had sworn to protect. Gangs
who were quelled in 2007 began re-emerging, and started bribing officials and officers as well as
working with them in illegal activities. Other armed groups besides the Islamic State began launching
organized attacks in broad daylight to such a high degree that officials and officers were targeted daily
causing cities like Tikrit to become an area of crime and degeneracy which the people of Iraq and US
forces had fought so hard to prevent from happening. The final straw that broke the cammel's back
was the Syrian Civil War. It breathed new life into Al Qaeda and militant groups began cohesing with
the Islamic State stationed in Iraq, causing a remobilization of arms trafficking in Mosul between Iraq
and Syrian based Islamic State fighters and militants allied with the Islamic State. When the Islamic
State finally struck in Mosul, the amount of incompetence was so astonishingly high that troops were
ordered to abandon their posts before the asault by the Islamic State on Mosul even commenced. Al-
Maliki constantly micromanaged the security forces, but ultimately still didn't trust them. Instead he
chose to allow violent government backed militias and mercenary groups to openly operate in areas
like Baghdad and even called on militias from outside Iraq and untrained volunteers to protect the
capital and remaining cities still under Iraqi control. Seeing the fruits of his forebearers being spoiled
by corruption and dissent in the military and governemnt, President Obama pointed out how al-Maliki
was the problem and simpy making the tumultuous issues present in Iraq that he created even worse.
He goes on to state that, “Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together [to forge] a
political plan for Iraq's future” (Al-Ali, “How Maliki Ruined Iraq”). Unfortunately the damage al-
9. McCormac 9
Maliki was so great, that the United States and all who would become invovled in fixing the Iraqi
government would have to start all over again, with the corruption and turmoil beaing as great as it was
during the reign of Saddam Hussean. The best option at this point would be to find a Pime Minister
who was a moderate, had no ties to the old Saddam regime, would cooperate with the United States,
and is willing to take back their country from the Islamic State. In 2014, Iraq elected their new Prime
Minister, Haider al-Abadi who was determined to fix the country he watched al-Maliki destory.
Once in Power, Haider al-Abadi made his first mission cleaning house. He implemented
numerious reforms to rid the Iraqi government of corruption as well as replace the incompitent officials
in the Iraqi military. He dismissed very high up officials who showed no interest in working with others
in order to beat back the Islamic State which was slowly creeping through Iraq. He released The
Seven-Point Plan which would completely change the way Iraw is governed. His first order of
business was removing ludicrous amounts of monetary benifits to retired officials as well as removing
unnecesary government positions such as his previously held position of Deputy Prime Minister, as
well as Co-Vice President, which was currently held by previously elected and incompitent leader,
Nouri al-Maliki, which permanently removed him from any position of authority in the Iraqi
governemnt. Al-Abadi called for the removal of Personal Security Details and relocated them to the
Department of Defense and Department of Interior in order to make the PSDs contribute to a national
security system which is being put through the ringer by the Islamic State. He also called for the
supervision of a supreme committee of specialists who would be able to combat corruption currently
present in the Iraqi government and prevent any corruption from re-entering it and growing like the
cancer it is by prosecuting and investigating those suspected of corruption. Not long after releasing
these plans, he tweeted, “The formatino of this government raised hopes among Iraqis, and we have to
10. McCormac 10
be the expectations of our people...We are committed to the spirit of the Constitution and the law”
(Shinkman, “Prime Minister Abadi Unveils a Bold Plan for Iraq”). Filled with the pride and patriotism
in their country, as al-Abadi had hopped to inspire, thousands of demonstrators of both Shiite and Sunni
backgrounds gathered in Baghdad to support the Seven-Point Plan. Al-Abadi also noticed that some
US regulations hindered the Iraqi government more than it helped. One regulation he was determined
to get rid of was a mandate that stated top positions must be split among the three ethnic groups of Iraq,
the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites. He came to the realization that this mandate simply put
unqualified people in positions of authority and did nothing to truly promote diversity in the Iraqi
government. He said that the new committee he hopes to create will, “select candidates in the light of
standards of competence and integrity and exempt the senior officials who lack such requirements”
(Shinkman, “Prime Minister Abadi Unveils a Bold Plan for Iraq”). Al-Abadi expressed the main
reason he removed the Co-Vice President position was out of fear that al-Maliki would use such a
position to gain support and return to a position of higher authority. In order to proove such claims of
this were untrue and to prevent himslef from leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the Iraqi citizens, al-
Maliki stated that this was not the case, and even praised al-Abadi for his Seven-Point Plan saying that
they were, “reforms required by the political process” (Shinkman, “Prime Minister Abadi Unveils a
Bold Plan for Iraq”). He also went on the back al-Abadi in his decisions of government reform across
the board and encouraged other government officials to do the same stating in a tweet that, “We support
any action aimed at evaluating the political process” (Shinkman, “Prime Minister Abadi Unveils a Bold
Plan for Iraq”). With plans to fix the Iraqi governemnt and military underway, al-Abadi's next task was
to balance a relationship between Iran and Turkey.
When al-Maliki was the Prime Minister of Iraq, he kept Iran very close and maintianed a deep
11. McCormac 11
relationship with them. Al-Abadi, however, has changed Iraq's foreign policy as much as he had
changed the Iraqi government. With the emergence of the Islamic State and their involvement in the
Syrian Civil war, al-Abadi realized that heavily relying on Iran as al-Maliki had done was very
detrimental and isolated Iraq politically from other Middle Eastern countries. He made many visits to
Turkey shorltly after his election to talk about settling the issues both countries had with one another.
At the same time, he encouraged Kurdish Iraqi president Fouad Massoum to travel to Saudi Arabia in
order to better relations with them as well which would in tern gain them more support from the United
States. In a visit to Washington DC, al-Abadi requested Iran to respect Iraq's soverignty, showcasing
the new, less dependent, Iraqi forieng relations with Iran. Al-Abadi's moderate and open foreign policy
was found appealing by many of Iraq's neighbors who ones despised and hated the country, to such a
degree that many of them like Turkey, are working with Iraq as well as collaborating with them. With
open arms extended to Iraq's neighbors, al-Abadi has secured alliances that will come in great hand
when the Syrian Civil War ends and the Islamic State attempts to flood back into Iraq. With another
big issue taken care of, al-Abadi's next goal was to go after the Islamic State, and take back the Iraqi
land under their control.
With the Syrian Civil War raging on and the Islamic State using Mosul to transport weapons and
armaments between Syria and Iraq, al-Abadis first goal in stopping them is to cut off the supply routes
being used in Mosul. In order to do this, he'd have to alline with the Peshmerga forces who have been
using guerilla tacticts against the Islamic State and had been abandoned by the Iraqi Military who
retreated and abandoned all their armamnets for ISIS to use. Al-Abadi also called on a $1.5billion
increas in funds from the United States, requested the re-opening of the sale of F-16s from the US to
12. McCormac 12
Iraqi forces. In order to fix the mess the Iraqi military had become due to al-Maliki's poor decisions,
he requested that US forces train the Iraqi soldiers and even fight along side them for the time being
until they are ready to take on the Islamic State on their own. Pentagon spokesperson Commander
Elissa Smith stated that, “Iraqi Security Forces have been isolating Mosul by cutting the lines of
communication. We've been building combat power through the [training] sites, through the coalition
air-campaign, helping with planning, and synchronising all of these elements to set conditions for a
future offensive” (O'Toole, “Battle for Mosul: The Cards are Stacked Against ISIL”). However with
everything going to plan for al-Abadi, he is still worried that it could backfire, and that the Iraqi
military is still too weak to take on the Islamic State stationed in Mosul, as shown when they tried to
maintain control of Ramadi, Iraq when ISIS began spreading further through Iraq. Another key issue
al-Abadi has with trying to retake Mosul so soon is that the relationship between the citizens in Mosul
and the Iraqi military are very strained. When the military fled in 2014 when the Islamic State first
took over Mosul, the citizens felt abandonoed and betrayed by the government that was supposed to
protect and serve them. Amar Taama, an Iraqi Politician who is on the parliamentary security and
defense committee, stated that, “the situation made Mosul a fertile ground for anyone other than this
regime...[when Mosul fell], the people of Nineveh said the military leaders were traitors. They fled
without fighitng, leaving Mosul as a gift to [the Islamic State]” (O'Toole, “Battle for Mosul: The Cards
are Stacked Against ISIL”). To take back Mosul, the Iraqi military must show prowess and the ability
top beat the Islamic State. Al-Abadi knows they must also do this very soon because of how
strategically important Mosul is. It is right next to the Syrian border and contains a major supply route
for the Islamic State, meaning that retaking Mosul will cripple the Islamic State stationed in Syria, and
when the Assad Regime wins the Civil War, to the hopes of al-Abadi, the Islamic State will not be able
13. McCormac 13
to return back into Iraq with more forces so easily since a military opposition will be waiting for them.
Iraq has been the center of attention in the Middle East since the Gulf War. They have
undergone many changes and endured many failures. The Shiites of the Iraqi people felt the harsh
oppression of Saddam Hussein's rule, and in return, the Sunnies of Iraq were dealt harsh segregated
policies under the rule of Nouri al-Maliki. They felt the fading of their beloved country to the hands of
the Islamic State who took over with little resitance due to al-Maliki's disinterest to protect the northern
Sunni population. However the people of Iraq also found a glimmer of hope and salvation from
corruption in the form of Haider al-Abadi, who made it his mission to weed out corruption in the Iraqi
government, appoint those who deserve the positions, and to remove the Islamic State from Iraq. He
has established relations with countries that once despised Iraq, and gained support from the United
States no one belived would ever be obtained. Al-Abadi has completely changed the face of Iraq and
is the first leader after Saddam to truly improve Iraq and make headway both politically and militarily
in a time when Iraq so depserately needed it.
14. McCormac 14
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