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U.S. Faces Opposing Regional Interests in Bid to Blunt Insurgency in Iraq
John Kerry Must Maneuver in Mideast's Ethnic, Tribal and Sectarian Divisions
By Jay Solomon
Updated June 23, 2014 8:14 a.m. ET
As fighting continues between Iraqi troops and ISIS in the Diyala province, the militant group hands out copies of the Quran to passersby in Mosul, the city they captured two weeks ago.
AMMAN, Jordan—As the Obama administration's top diplomat arrived in the Middle East to gather support to blunt a Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. was colliding with the region's ethnic, tribal and sectarian divisions.
Deep gaps between U.S. and Arab views over the crisis have grown more obvious in recent days, say American and regional officials, hampering Washington's response to the onslaught by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, which this month seized control of territories straddling Iraq and Syria.
The task gained new urgency on Sunday when ISIS swept through new Iraq towns and overran two border crossings with Jordan and Syria, blocking the Iraqi government's access to its western frontier, security officials said.
President Barack Obama raised the stakes on Sunday, telling CBS News that ISIS threatens American interests if it turns to global terrorism, two days after he announced plans to send U.S. military advisers and supplies to Iraq and called for a new, more inclusive government in Baghdad.
The precipitous fall of Mosul two weeks ago and cities to its south offers a glimpse of the corruption, inefficiency and general institutional rot that has afflicted Iraq's U.S.-trained military. WSJ's Matt Bradley reports on the News Hub with Simon Constable. Photo: AP
The crisis in Iraq has exposed contradictions in traditional Mideast alliances, in some ways placing the U.S. alongside its sworn enemy, Shiite-ruled Iran, in a joint effort to halt ISIS, while in other ways putting Washington at odds with longtime Sunni allies in the Persian Gulf, who want to weaken Iran's sway over Iraq.
Days before Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Cairo and then Amman to seek support for U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, U.S. officials said the chief American diplomat held a conference call with Sunni Arab leaders. What he heard from them, said a senior Arab diplomat briefed on the call, were expressions of bewilderment.
"We felt the Americans were greatly misinformed," the diplomat said. "The insurgency isn't just about ISIS, but Sunnis fighting back against injustice."
The White House has signaled to Iraqi politicians that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, should go because of his failure to build bridges to his country's major minorities—Sunnis and Kurds—during his eight years in power.
But to create a new, more inclusive Iraqi government, U.S. officials will need to stitch together the vastly differing interests of the region's powers who view Iraq as the focal point for their struggle for influence.
As political turmoil spreads through Iraq, many predict a similar future for Afghanistan. Cries of rigged elections have caused unrest among Afghan citizens. Jerry Seib explains the circumstances, and the political problems limiting the ability of the U.S. to act.
For Iran, the Maliki government has proved a pliant partner and a symbol of resurgent Shiite power across the Mideast after decades of Sunni rule under Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Tehran won't accept a non-Shiite leader in Baghdad who isn't at least sympathetic to Iran's ambitions, if not supportive of them, said U.S. and Arab officials.
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, drove home the point on Sunday with a warning that Tehran will back Mr. Maliki.
"We strongly oppose the intervention of the U.S. and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq," Mr. Khamenei said in remarks on the Fars news agency, his first since the crisis with ISIS began. "The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the U.S. camp and those who seek an independent Iraq."
The Sunni states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, are seeking a new Iraqi leader bereft of cozy ties to Iran and one more focused on promoting Iraq's Arab identity than its Shiite one.
The Kurds, meanwhile, are demanding Baghdad's next government grant their region greater political, economic and strategic autonomy, or risk Irbil declaring formal independence.
A fighter with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, distributed a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, on Sunday to a van in Mosul in northern Iraq. Sunni militants swept through new towns and overran two border crossings with Jordan and Syria, on Iraq's western frontier. Associated Press
"This isn't a case of the Kurds breaking free from Iraq, but Iraq breaking free from us," said Karwan Zebari, the Kurdish Regional Government's ambassador to Washington, in an interview.
The deliberations over Iraq that Mr. Kerry is pursuing will have ramifications beyond the country's borders, say U.S. and Arab diplomats.
Any formula accepted by the Iraqis and the regional powers in the coming weeks could resuscitate the flagging international efforts to stop the civil war in neighboring Syria, where more than 160,000 people have died over the past three years, the diplomats say.
The same Arab, Iranian and Kurdish forces that are now vying for power in Iraq, also are supporting the competing militias inside Syria.
The U.S.'s deep involvement in Iraq over the past three decades repeatedly has placed Washington on the fault line between the region's Sunni and Shiite sects.
The Reagan administration shared intelligence with Saddam Hussein's regime during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, an effort viewed by Tehran as an overt American effort to back the Sunni Arabs and weaken Iran's revolutionary Shiite government.
The George W. Bush administration overthrew Mr. Hussein in 2003, conversely, a move criticized by the Arab states, who said it would empower Iran, as Iraq's population is more than 60% Shiite.
The crisis spurred a new political debate in the U.S. capital.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Vice President **** Cheney clashed over the issue Sunday, with the senator, a possible presidential candidate, saying that as president he wouldn't involve U.S. troops in civil wars in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Cheney said the senator was pushing a misguided "isolationist" strategy.
The disagreement, in televised interviews, underscored a potential issue for Republicans choosing a candidate in 2016.
The current debate in Washington on whether to strike ISIS militarily is also being heavily influenced by sectarian considerations, according to U.S. officials.
Sunni leaders in Iraq and other Mideast states have questioned why the U.S. would consider bombing militants to support a Shiite government in Iraq when it wouldn't attack the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad —who adheres to a Shiite offshoot—after it allegedly used chemical weapons on largely Sunni rebels last year.
These sentiments led Mr. Obama to make clear last week the U.S. wouldn't pursue military operations "that support one sect of Iraq at the expense of another."
A principal aim of Mr. Kerry's meetings with Arab, Kurdish and European leaders over the next week is to forge a more common understanding of the threat posed by ISIS and Iraq's burgeoning civil war.
Members of Mr. Maliki's government and Iranian officials in recent days have framed the challenge almost solely through a counterterrorism lens. They cited ISIS's past links to al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations, and the alleged influx into Iraq of foreign fighters from other Arab states and Europe.
"It is all coordinated, and it has international dimensions," said Iraq's ambassador to the U.S., Lukman Faily. "These are not Iraqi fighters. These are jihadis."
Sunni leaders in Iraq and elsewhere, however, describe ISIS as only part of a wider Sunni uprising against Mr. Maliki's government fueled by years in which their political rights and economic opportunities have diminished. They cite former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party as being part of the revolt, as well as Sunni tribes that only a few years ago were aligned with the U.S. in its fight against al Qaeda in western Iraq.
The intense Sunni ire directed at Mr. Maliki has underpinned the belief held by many U.S. officials that the crisis in Iraq can't end while he remains in power.
—Ali A. Nabhan and Matt Bradley in Baghdad contributed to this article.
U.S. Faces Opposing Regional Interests in Bid to Blunt Insurgency in Iraq
John Kerry Must Maneuver in Mideast's Ethnic, Tribal and Sectarian Divisions
By Jay Solomon
Updated June 23, 2014 8:14 a.m. ET
As fighting continues between Iraqi troops and ISIS in the Diyala province, the militant group hands out copies of the Quran to passersby in Mosul, the city they captured two weeks ago.
AMMAN, Jordan—As the Obama administration's top diplomat arrived in the Middle East to gather support to blunt a Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. was colliding with the region's ethnic, tribal and sectarian divisions.
Deep gaps between U.S. and Arab views over the crisis have grown more obvious in recent days, say American and regional officials, hampering Washington's response to the onslaught by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, which this month seized control of territories straddling Iraq and Syria.
The task gained new urgency on Sunday when ISIS swept through new Iraq towns and overran two border crossings with Jordan and Syria, blocking the Iraqi government's access to its western frontier, security officials said.
President Barack Obama raised the stakes on Sunday, telling CBS News that ISIS threatens American interests if it turns to global terrorism, two days after he announced plans to send U.S. military advisers and supplies to Iraq and called for a new, more inclusive government in Baghdad.
The precipitous fall of Mosul two weeks ago and cities to its south offers a glimpse of the corruption, inefficiency and general institutional rot that has afflicted Iraq's U.S.-trained military. WSJ's Matt Bradley reports on the News Hub with Simon Constable. Photo: AP
The crisis in Iraq has exposed contradictions in traditional Mideast alliances, in some ways placing the U.S. alongside its sworn enemy, Shiite-ruled Iran, in a joint effort to halt ISIS, while in other ways putting Washington at odds with longtime Sunni allies in the Persian Gulf, who want to weaken Iran's sway over Iraq.
Days before Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Cairo and then Amman to seek support for U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, U.S. officials said the chief American diplomat held a conference call with Sunni Arab leaders. What he heard from them, said a senior Arab diplomat briefed on the call, were expressions of bewilderment.
"We felt the Americans were greatly misinformed," the diplomat said. "The insurgency isn't just about ISIS, but Sunnis fighting back against injustice."
The White House has signaled to Iraqi politicians that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, should go because of his failure to build bridges to his country's major minorities—Sunnis and Kurds—during his eight years in power.
But to create a new, more inclusive Iraqi government, U.S. officials will need to stitch together the vastly differing interests of the region's powers who view Iraq as the focal point for their struggle for influence.
As political turmoil spreads through Iraq, many predict a similar future for Afghanistan. Cries of rigged elections have caused unrest among Afghan citizens. Jerry Seib explains the circumstances, and the political problems limiting the ability of the U.S. to act.
For Iran, the Maliki government has proved a pliant partner and a symbol of resurgent Shiite power across the Mideast after decades of Sunni rule under Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Tehran won't accept a non-Shiite leader in Baghdad who isn't at least sympathetic to Iran's ambitions, if not supportive of them, said U.S. and Arab officials.
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, drove home the point on Sunday with a warning that Tehran will back Mr. Maliki.
"We strongly oppose the intervention of the U.S. and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq," Mr. Khamenei said in remarks on the Fars news agency, his first since the crisis with ISIS began. "The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the U.S. camp and those who seek an independent Iraq."
The Sunni states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, are seeking a new Iraqi leader bereft of cozy ties to Iran and one more focused on promoting Iraq's Arab identity than its Shiite one.
The Kurds, meanwhile, are demanding Baghdad's next government grant their region greater political, economic and strategic autonomy, or risk Irbil declaring formal independence.
A fighter with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, distributed a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, on Sunday to a van in Mosul in northern Iraq. Sunni militants swept through new towns and overran two border crossings with Jordan and Syria, on Iraq's western frontier. Associated Press
"This isn't a case of the Kurds breaking free from Iraq, but Iraq breaking free from us," said Karwan Zebari, the Kurdish Regional Government's ambassador to Washington, in an interview.
The deliberations over Iraq that Mr. Kerry is pursuing will have ramifications beyond the country's borders, say U.S. and Arab diplomats.
Any formula accepted by the Iraqis and the regional powers in the coming weeks could resuscitate the flagging international efforts to stop the civil war in neighboring Syria, where more than 160,000 people have died over the past three years, the diplomats say.
The same Arab, Iranian and Kurdish forces that are now vying for power in Iraq, also are supporting the competing militias inside Syria.
The U.S.'s deep involvement in Iraq over the past three decades repeatedly has placed Washington on the fault line between the region's Sunni and Shiite sects.
The Reagan administration shared intelligence with Saddam Hussein's regime during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, an effort viewed by Tehran as an overt American effort to back the Sunni Arabs and weaken Iran's revolutionary Shiite government.
The George W. Bush administration overthrew Mr. Hussein in 2003, conversely, a move criticized by the Arab states, who said it would empower Iran, as Iraq's population is more than 60% Shiite.
The crisis spurred a new political debate in the U.S. capital.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Vice President **** Cheney clashed over the issue Sunday, with the senator, a possible presidential candidate, saying that as president he wouldn't involve U.S. troops in civil wars in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Cheney said the senator was pushing a misguided "isolationist" strategy.
The disagreement, in televised interviews, underscored a potential issue for Republicans choosing a candidate in 2016.
The current debate in Washington on whether to strike ISIS militarily is also being heavily influenced by sectarian considerations, according to U.S. officials.
Sunni leaders in Iraq and other Mideast states have questioned why the U.S. would consider bombing militants to support a Shiite government in Iraq when it wouldn't attack the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad —who adheres to a Shiite offshoot—after it allegedly used chemical weapons on largely Sunni rebels last year.
These sentiments led Mr. Obama to make clear last week the U.S. wouldn't pursue military operations "that support one sect of Iraq at the expense of another."
A principal aim of Mr. Kerry's meetings with Arab, Kurdish and European leaders over the next week is to forge a more common understanding of the threat posed by ISIS and Iraq's burgeoning civil war.
Members of Mr. Maliki's government and Iranian officials in recent days have framed the challenge almost solely through a counterterrorism lens. They cited ISIS's past links to al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations, and the alleged influx into Iraq of foreign fighters from other Arab states and Europe.
"It is all coordinated, and it has international dimensions," said Iraq's ambassador to the U.S., Lukman Faily. "These are not Iraqi fighters. These are jihadis."
Sunni leaders in Iraq and elsewhere, however, describe ISIS as only part of a wider Sunni uprising against Mr. Maliki's government fueled by years in which their political rights and economic opportunities have diminished. They cite former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party as being part of the revolt, as well as Sunni tribes that only a few years ago were aligned with the U.S. in its fight against al Qaeda in western Iraq.
The intense Sunni ire directed at Mr. Maliki has underpinned the belief held by many U.S. officials that the crisis in Iraq can't end while he remains in power.
—Ali A. Nabhan and Matt Bradley in Baghdad contributed to this article.
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