Baghdad: As Shiite militiamen began streaming toward Ramadi on Monday to try to reverse the loss of the city to Daesh, the defeat has given new momentum to Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s rivals within his own Shiite political bloc.
At the urging of US officials who sought to sideline the militias, Al Abadi had, in effect, gambled that the combination of US air strikes and local Sunni tribal fighters would be able to drive Daesh fighters out of the city as fighting intensified in recent weeks. The hope was that a victory in Ramadi could also serve as a push for a broader offensive to retake Al Anbar province.
But as the setback brought the militias, and their Iranian backers, back into the picture in Al Anbar, intensified Shiite infighting appeared to leave the prime minister more vulnerable than ever. And it presented a new example of how developments on the Iraqi battlefield have sometimes instantly shifted political currents in the country.
“Al Abadi does not have a strong challenge from Iraq’s Sunnis or Iraqi Kurds,” said Ahmad Ali, an Iraqi analyst in Washington with the Education for Peace in Iraq Centre. “It’s from the Shiite side.”
Al Abadi’s rivals within Iraq’s Shiite political bloc have been accusing him for months of doing too much to work with Al Anbar residents rather than empowering the militias.
He became prime minister last year with strong backing from the United States on the belief that he would be a more inclusive leader than his predecessor, Nouri Al Maliki, and would reach out to the country’s Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Al Abadi has done so, by pushing for the arming of local tribesmen and reaching a deal with the Kurds to share oil revenue.
But at every turn he has been thwarted by powerful leaders with links to Iran, including Al Maliki. Now, the latest setback in Ramadi has given Al Abadi’s rivals even more ammunition.
Some politicians, including Al Maliki, and powerful militia leaders linked to Iran, whose fighters are now preparing to fight in Al Anbar, have become increasingly critical of Al Abadi. Either they have spoken out themselves or news media outlets they control have taken aim at the prime minister through distorted coverage that has highlighted security failures in Al Anbar.
In one instance, the television news channel Afaq, which is run by allies of Al Maliki, gave running coverage to the supposed slaughter of 140 army soldiers last month at an outpost in Al Anbar, spurring public criticism of Al Abadi. Western diplomats and military officials say the story was untrue, and Daesh, notably, never claimed to have killed that many.
The effect, though, was to undermine Al Abadi’s rule, analysts said. There were calls for Al Abadi to resign.
Flashing uncharacteristic anger, Al Abadi, appeared in front of Parliament and essentially dared his rivals to remove him from power.
“Iran is using Al Maliki against Al Abadi,” said a diplomat in Baghdad with close ties to the Iranians who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain relationships in the capital. “They don’t want Al Abadi to become pro-Western. The Iranians want Al Abadi weak.”
An official close to Al Abadi, who spoke anonymously to discuss private conversations, related a joke that has been told among the prime minister’s inner circle: “Even if two fish fight in the river, it is Al Maliki stirring them up.”
The official added, of Al Abadi, “He is obsessed with Al Maliki.”
The largely Shiite militias are grouped under an umbrella organisation called the Popular Mobilisation Forces and, on paper at least, are under Al Abadi’s command.
Some of the newer units, formed last year after Shiite clerics called on young men to take up arms and fight Daesh, do answer to the prime minister. Some of the most powerful groups, though, such as the Badr Organisation, Asaib Ahl Al Haq and Kataib Hezbollah, may answer to Al Abadi in individual cases — they did not advance on Al Anbar until the prime minister gave orders, for example. But those militias were trained and supported directly by Iran, and the militias’ leaders have grown immensely in popularity with the Iraqi public as they have won significant battles against Daesh.
Serious challenges
This has presented serious challenges to Al Abadi’s authority. For instance, in March, at the beginning of an operation to retake the city of Tikrit north of Baghdad, the plans were drawn up by militia leaders and then Al Abadi was told it would happen. Once those fighters failed to retake Tikrit decisively, Al Abadi asked them to withdraw and called for help from US air strikes, reasserting his authority for the moment.
Now that the militias have been called upon to fight in Al Anbar, Al Abadi’s authority seems to be waning again, and the militias’ cachet has only grown. One of the most popular pictures circulating on social media in Iraq on Monday showed Hadi Al Ameri, the powerful head of the Badr militia, examining a map and seemingly plotting out a new campaign in Al Anbar.
Fanar Haddad, an Iraqi analyst, recently wrote in an online column that the militias have “provided a potent rallying point for a reinvigorated sense of Iraqi nationalism, albeit one with distinctly Shiite overtones.”
In an interview, Haddad said Al Abadi was limited in his ability to constrain the Popular Mobilisation Forces — or Hashid, in Arabic, as the militias are known here. “If you want to be part of Iraq’s evolving political game, you can’t go against the Hashid,” he said. “It’s just too popular.”
The militias’ growing popularity has coincided with an even more powerful approval of Iran’s role in Iraq, at least among Shiite Iraqis.
Once, even many Iraqi Shiites looked at Iran with some suspicion, partly because of the legacy of the long and bloody war that Iraq fought with Iran in the 1980s. A frequent gripe of the past was about low-quality Iranian goods, such as cheese and yoghurt, clogging the shelves of grocery stories.
Now, though, in the words of Ali Kareem Salman, a 31-year-old government worker in the south, “Shiites think that Iran is the protector of the Shiite sect.”
Hanan Fatlawi, a Shiite lawmaker who is one of Al Abadi’s most vocal critics, said: “Previously, you could divide the Shiites into two sides: those who hate Iran and those who love them. But after the entrance of [Daesh], and with the situation we are in, many people are grateful to Iran. Their opinion changed.”
Of the militias, she said, “Without them there would be no Baghdad.”
There is an essential paradox to Al Abadi’s leadership thus far. In nearly every way he has proved to be the inclusive leader mandated by the United States, reaching out to Sunnis and Kurds and seeking consensus. But within Iraq, he is increasingly viewed as weak and unable to effectively shift Iraq’s tragic trajectory.
“This term ‘inclusive personality,’ I only hear from foreigners,” Hanan said. “He was weak from the start.”