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.