After the withdrawal of U.S. military forces at the end of 2011, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki quickly moved to consolidate his power, ordering the arrest of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges in December 2011, purging Sunni military and intelligence officers from the Iraqi security forces and replacing them with loyalists, and dispatching his security forces to detain Finance Minister Rafa al-Issawi’s bodyguards in December 2012 in an act of political intimidation.

Hashemi fled the country and was sentenced in absentia to death by a judiciary heavily influenced by Maliki allies. Issawi, a high-ranking Sunni Arab official in a government dominated by Shi’a, resigned under pressure from his cabinet post, triggering largely nonviolent protests across Iraq’s Sunni Arab majority provinces in the north-central and western regions of the country.

In April 2013, Sunni Arabs held a demonstration in the town of Hawija to protest government corruption, lack of public services and their political marginalization. Iraqi security forces attempting to disperse the demonstration exchanged fire with protesters, resulting in nearly 50 deaths and contributing to a shift from nonviolent demonstrations to insurgency.

On Jan. 1, 2014, an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 militants seized control of parts of the Sunni Arab cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, the latter located less than 48 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

The Iraqi military has since established a cordon around the cities and is working with Sunni tribal leaders to eliminate them. The military is reluctant to get drawn into the urban fighting itself, and the U.S. has discouraged it from doing so out of fear that it will further inflame the situation by alienating the populace with harsh and indiscriminate tactics and possibly face strong resistance. The tribal leaders have divided sentiments; some are fighting on the side of the central government under the premise that they will be rewarded for their loyalty, while others are tactically allied with Al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups in an effort to overthrow the state.

Brett McGurk, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state of Iran and Iraq, testified before Congress in February that the Iraqi military was unable to cut off the flow of militants from the west, many of whom are crossing the border from Syria, due to the inadequate armor of the military’s armed air and ground forces as well as the advanced tactics of the insurgents. The Obama administration plans to send the Iraqi military more heavily armored Apache helicopters despite its wariness of the potential for their misuse against Sunni Arabs with legitimate political grievances or against Iraqi Kurds in the north, who have been contesting the central government for control of oil within their autonomous region.

The U.S. also is training Iraqi special operations forces in Jordan and providing counterterrorism support and technical advisory assistance to improve the security of Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

Although few major attacks have been reported in the oil-rich southern provinces of Iraq, which are primarily inhabited by Shi’a Arabs, the governor of Basra has hired Aegis Defence Services managed by the former British general who headed the occupation of the province from 2003 to 2007 to provide intelligence and security advisory services.

Risk outlook

The U.S. faces the dilemma of having to support an Iraqi government that has marginalized and abused its Sunni Arab minority while attempting to persuade it to bring the Sunnis back into the political fold—something it has thus far not demonstrated great inclination to do. There is a potential moral hazard in strengthening the central government with advanced weaponry—i.e., this may reduce its incentive to negotiate with its political opponents, driving them into a closer alliance with Al Qaeda-associated forces. On the other hand, if the Iraqi government does not receive what it wants from the U.S., other governments would be willing to step in.

An Iraqi military incapable of securing the government’s writ over key territory, particularly oil infrastructure, would also lead to increased militant funding and activity from oil smuggling as well as the renewed growth of Shi’a militias, which killed thousands of Sunni Arabs per month at the height of the sectarian conflict in 2006 to 2007. This could lead Iraq’s regional neighbors to increase their involvement in efforts to shape the political outcome through covert military support to the various armed factions.

Michael Knights, an Iraq specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted that Iraq has lost control of its border with Syria as well as two out of three of its major international trade and oil export highways—one to Jordan and the other to Turkey.

The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey, which exports about 20% of Iraq’s crude oil production, has been cut north of the oil refining city of Baiji for more than two months, forcing Iraq’s North Oil Company to shut down production stations at two oil fields in Kirkuk and reducing output from 500,000 bbl/d to 225,000 bbl/d. Repair crews have been repeatedly ambushed and prevented from fixing the pipeline despite having military escorts.

"The Baghdad government should understand this message: Stop spilling our blood and we'll stop attacking the oil pipeline," Abu Ammar, a Sunni tribal leader in Nineveh province told Reuters last year. "The Shi'ite government is killing and persecuting Sunnis in all parts of Iraq. As revenge we have to make the government suffer, and the best way is to keep blowing up the oil pipeline."

Thus far, however, they have demonstrated “almost zero capability” to reach into the target-rich oil-producing province of Basra since an attempt in 2004 to bomb its export facilities, according to Knights.

Whether Maliki wins a third term as Prime Minister will depend on how well he is able to repair his fraying relationships with the Shi’a political leaders in his coalition, whom he has ostracized by his increasing monopolization of power, as well as whether he can convince Iran that he will continue to show deference to its core national security interests—e.g. by continuing to turn a blind eye to Iran’s weapons shipments to Syria via Iraq. It could take months in any case for Iraq to form a government.

If Maliki’s Shi’a coalition fragments, he may resort to questionable legal and extrajudicial measures to maintain and strengthen his power as he has in the past. Knights described Maliki has having done a thorough job of “coup-proofing” his regime against the intrigues of Sunni leaders. A recent report from the Institute for the Study of War concurs that Maliki has purged most Sunni Arabs from the senior ranks of the military and intelligence officer corps and has established a parallel, informal chain of command within the security services that is staffed by trusted officials and commanders. He may not be so well-protected on his Shi’a flank, however.

Maliki’s stacking of the political and security deck, intended to protect him from internal threats to his rule, may end up exacerbating political instability by convincing discarded officials and military and intelligence officers to plot against him in various ways including, in the case of the Sunnis, by supporting the insurgents in the west and north of Iraq as some are already doing. An increase in instability would spur Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular to intervene more aggressively behind the scenes.

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