Ignatius: Outlines for a strategy

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's slow campaign against the Islamic State takes a small step forward this week as a leading Sunni politician visits Washington to urge support for a 10,000-member national guard force that could gradually help regain control of Mosul.

Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Ninevah province, said in an interview that he will meet with officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House to urge that the U.S. train and arm the volunteer force. Nujaifi and other members of the provincial government were driven from Mosul in June when the Iraqi army collapsed and Islamic State fighters seized the city.

The Iraqi official made several comments that challenged conventional wisdom among Iraqi Sunnis. He argued that a tribal militia isn't the answer, especially in Ninevah where tribes are weak and disorganized; he spoke positively about Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite who still isn't trusted by many Sunnis; he rejected a quasi-autonomous "Sunnistan" region in northern and western Iraq; and finally, he said he is working with Turkish military and political leaders on training and equipping fighters.

My only worry in talking with the English-speaking, pinstripe-suited Nujaifi is that he represents an Iraqi elite that has in many ways been shattered by the decades of war and the rise of the brutal extremism represented by the Islamic State. Americans over the last decade have often made the mistake of assuming that pro-American "good guys" such as Nujaifi will prevail in the free-fire zone of Iraqi politics. If that hope could be easily realized, the history of the last decade would have been quite different.

Nujaifi said he had met twice with Abadi since he became prime minister in September. "I respect this man. He wants to work. He's open-minded, not like Maliki," a reference to Abadi's predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, who was seen as a polarizing, pro-Iranian figure by most Sunni leaders.

Nujaifi argues that the best model for liberating northern Iraq isn't the Awakening movement of the previous decade, which mobilized Sunni tribes, but a multi-sectarian force that includes Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen along with the majority Sunni Arab population. In recruiting volunteers for this force, he argued, they should be organized by neighborhoods and districts so that they will have support from the local population.

"For us in Mosul, it's better to fight [the Islamic State] in a systematic way, controlled by [military] officers, not [tribal] sheiks," Nujaifi said. Already, he noted, local fighters are operating secretly inside Mosul gathering intelligence and preparing the battle space.

Nujaifi said a training camp had recently opened for police from Ninevah who fled in June. Canadian and U.S. advisers are beginning to train 4,375 police at the camp in Kurdistan, about 30 miles from Mosul. Nujaifi said he hopes soon to open a second training camp nearby for about 10,000 national guard recruits, who would be selected from the 1 million refugees who have fled Ninevah, nearly 25 percent of the province's population.

The Turkish government has already agreed to support both training camps, Nujaifi said. Jordan, too, has been helpful. Nujaifi hopes for support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but he said it isn't yet visible on the ground.

Iran poses the trickiest problem. Nujaifi said he had met several times with the Iranian ambassador in Irbil, who had offered weapons for the fight against the Sunni jihadists. "We can't accept that," he said. "Our people think that the main enemy is Iran."

Washington Post Writers Group

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