Spotlight: Iraqi's divisions stall Abadi's reforms, disrupt anti-IS campaign

The deep social and political strife among Iraqi factions is still nowhere near bridged in 2015, complicating Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's anti-corruption reform which is crucial for battling the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

IRAQ'S POLITICAL PROCESS STILL ON ROCKS

More than 12 years of warfare after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the fabric of the Iraqi society has substantially changed. The country has seen deepening ethnic and sectarian divisions, broken health and education facilities, displacement and indiscriminate killings, and massive bomb attacks against civilians.

The Shiite-dominated government has long been at odds with the Kurds over the distribution of oil wealth and the control of disputed areas outside the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The two sides, however, reached an agreement over oil exports and budget payments, under which the Kurdish region can export 250,000 crude oil barrels per day (bpd) from its oil fields and 300,000 bpd from Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields under the control of the State Organization for Marketing of Oil via Turkey's port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. In return, Baghdad's federal government will pay 17 percent of the national budget to the Kurdish regional government.

But the deal faced hurdles because of lack of money amid the country's financial crisis, as oil prices in global markets have tumbled to the lowest levels in decades, which largely affected Iraq's oil export revenues that constitute 90 percent of its annual budget.

The Shiite-dominated government is also at odds with Sunni Arabs who had been in wide-spread demonstrations and sit-in protests since December 2012, complaining about injustice, marginalization, discrimination, double standards and politicization of the judicial system. They also accused the Shiite-dominated security forces of indiscriminately arresting, torturing and killing their sons.

About a year later, the protests turned into fierce clashes that flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi.

The deep social division and worsening security deterioration created a proper atmosphere for extremist groups to take the lead in June 2014 and seize the country's second largest city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province in northern Iraq, and later swathes of territories in the province and other predominantly Sunni areas in the provinces of Salahudin, Kirkuk and Diyala.

During 2015, millions of Sunni Arabs ended up displaced inside their country or becoming refugees in camps outside Iraq.

According to a report issued by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in August 2015, the conflict has resulted in a displacement crisis of an unprecedented scale with more than 3.2 million people being forced into displacement since January 2014.

The majority of 87 percent of internally displaced people are originally from three Sunni provinces of Anbar, Nineveh and Salahudin.

The overall scene in Iraq at the end of 2015 shows that social divisions are still representing a concern to many Iraqis who believe that leading parties in the political process have not yet succeeded in laying a foundation of unity, which is vital in battling the IS.

POLITICAL DIVISIONS CRIPPLE ABADI'S AMBITIOUS REFORMS

It has been a long time since September 2014 when Abadi formed his cabinet and pledged to carry out reforms to the fragile political process, but the powerful political parties, including his own Islamic Dawa Party, which gained power from the sectarian division, made it hard for him to break their influence.

In mid-2015, the Iraqi people realized that Abadi could not overcome the deep political and ethnic-sectarian divisions which had prevented him from meeting his promised anti-corruption reforms. Thousands of angry people then demonstrated in Baghdad and several other Iraqi cities against slack public services, power shortage, and massive corruption.

The heavy pressure from protests of all Iraqi factions and significant support by Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani encouraged Abadi to announce an ambitious reform plan, as such a huge pressure forced the infighting political parties to show a rare unity in backing Abadi's plan in both the cabinet and the parliament.

Abadi issued several packages of reforms, including abolishing the posts of vice president and deputy premier and cutting 11 of his cabinet posts, in addition to slashing the number of guards for senior officials.

The reform gained popular support but by the end of the year fell short to convince many demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good.

So far, Abadi's plan was encountered by the lack of trust among the political parties who see that such reforms, or part of them, are marginalizing their factions from the political scene which originally was built on power-sharing agreements.

Most of country's political parties have built their own influence and power throughout years of bloody sectarian turf war across the country after 2003. As none of them is willing to lose its gains, Abadi, alone, cannot confront those parties, including his own Islamic Dawa Party.

IRAQ'S BUMPY POLITICAL PROCESS V.S. CHALLENGES OF IS TERROR

Iraq's security forces and allied Shiite paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi, made their first military victory in late March, when the troops retook control of Salahudin's provincial capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

The liberation of Tikrit was seen as the beginning of a series of IS pull-out from Iraqi cities, but the IS group made a surprised success in the heartland of Sunni Arabs when they seized Anbar's provincial capital city of Ramadi in mid-May.

Following the fall of Ramadi, about 110 km west of Baghdad, the extremist militants and the government troops were involved in months-long tug-of-war battles around the IS-held cities in Anbar as well as in Salahudin's town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, and Iraq's largest oil refinery nearby.

However, the government troops gained ground from IS militants in October when Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced to launch the second phase of a major offensive that pushed the troops to liberate the northern part of the province, including the town of Baiji, nearby oil refinery and the town of Seiniyah. The troops, however, slowed their advance against IS positions and almost stopped some 20 km north of Baiji, as they were heading toward the IS-held town of Shirqat, some 280 km north of Baghdad.

The fall of Ramadi was seen as the IS' biggest success since they captured Iraq's northern city of Mosul last year. On the other side it was seen as a major setback to Abadi's efforts to defeat the IS.

After the fall of Ramadi, the Americans, who lead an anti-IS international coalition to support Iraqi forces with airstrikes, training and weapons, apparently made partial shift in their strategy of fighting the IS in Iraq. They preferred depending more on recruiting Sunni tribal fighters who are land owners in the Sunni provinces and less on the Shiite-dominated forces and allied Shiite paramilitary units.

The Americans believe that the Iraqi forces still have real problems, including poor command and control, lack of coordination, intelligence deficit and other logistic issues.

They also see that large presence of Sunni paramilitaries within the Hashd Shaabi units, or even separately, is necessary to reduce the Sunni residents' fears of possible burning and looting of their homes by the Shiite militias out of sectarian and revenge motives, like what happened in the cities of Tikrit, Dour and other towns and villages in the Salahudin province which the security forces and allied Shiite militias freed from IS extremists.

However, the Americans apparently were disappointed by Abadi's slow and ineffective measures in reaching out to the Sunni community. Hundreds of U.S. trainers and advisers started training recruits from local Sunni tribes in bases in Anbar province.

In early October, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft, launched a major offensive to free Ramadi from IS militants, but made slow advances before they surrounded the city and started battles on its edges.

On Nov. 19, troops of the Iraqi army, police and Sunni tribal fighters, backed by U.S. trainers, made their first success by crossing Warrar River in southwestern Ramadi and seizing Ta'mim district. The step was essential for building up enough forces across the river to resume their battles after a month to advance further toward the central part of the city.

On Dec. 22, the troops started their final push and managed to seize the provincial government complex in the heart of the city after five days of heavy fighting and slow advance, as the extremist militants planted large number of roadside bombs, booby-trapped vehicles and buildings.

At the end of the year, the troops are expected to need a few more days to flush out the extremist militants from the entire city before they go to other key cities and towns in the province.

One day before regaining control of the provincial government complex in Ramadi, the Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi vowed "Iraqi forces are close to free Ramadi" and pledged that "during the next days, Iraqi forces will free the IS-held territories in the provinces of Anbar, as well as Salahudin and Nineveh."

Observers see that the recapture of Ramadi and other key cities in Iraq's largest province of Anbar is more complex and difficult than the previous retaking of Tikrit, as the province has long been a hub for powerful Sunni insurgency. Its geographic complexity, expansive deserts and multiple borders with three neighboring countries and five Iraqi provinces made its security task the most difficult.

Another military success against the IS group was gained in November in northern Iraq when Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, backed by international aircraft, freed the town of Sinjar, some 100 km west of the IS-held city of Mosul.

The liberation of Sinjar was a significant step toward driving out IS militants from Mosul. Retaking Sinjar cut vital supply routes used by the IS to move fighters, weapons and oil between their strongholds in Syria and their bastion of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's second largest province of Nineveh, about 400 km north of Baghdad.

The Iraqis are fighting the IS across the country but their eyes are looking toward Mosul, as dislodging the militants from the city, which had a population of two million before being captured by the IS in June 2014, would effectively abolish the IS state structure in Iraq and deprive it of a major source of funding, which comes partly from oil and partly from fees and taxes on residents.

Observers see that in 2016 it is essential for Abadi, influential politicians and tribal leaders to take brave decisions to address tough challenges that threaten to split up Iraq.

They should put aside their accumulated differences and conflicts to focus on bringing tangible anti-corruption reforms that could give the Iraqis a hope for a better future. They should also focus on a comprehensive and realistic national reconciliation in which various Iraqi parties can agree on a single national decision. Endit