Western Anbar After the Awakening: A Tale of Three Cities by Michael W. Hein - Military Review
After the Islamic State (IS) seized control of Fallujah in January 2014, it extended its territory to most of Iraq’s three Sunni majority provinces—Anbar, Salah ad Din, and Ninawa—by the end of the year. IS capitalized on the marginalization of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, particularly in the armed forces. Rather than reconciling with the Sunnis as it recaptured the major cities in these provinces in 2015, 2016, and 2017, Baghdad gradually displaced and eroded Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, leaving behind millions of internally displaced persons and empty, pockmarked cities such as Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit, and Mosul. Not surprisingly, as early as 2015, alleged atrocities and ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias undermined efforts to bring about a new Sunni Awakening, prompting calls for the deployment of U.S. troops.
In November 2017, Iraqi forces recaptured the last IS-held town in western Anbar. And, during the two-year campaign to defeat IS, U.S. advisors were once again training Iraqi counterparts at Al Asad Airbase in western Anbar, as well as advising and accompanying them in battle against IS in Tal Afar. Consequently, it is not inconceivable that U.S. forces could be directed to assist in rebuilding local security forces after the defeat of IS. This is the role that U.S. forces played in the Anbar Awakening in 2006, and it required advisors to become deeply involved in recruiting and training Iraqi army and police units, thereby determining which tribes controlled local security. There is no guarantee that such an approach would be successful again, particularly given Baghdad’s systematic disenfranchisement of Sunnis following the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. Nevertheless, it is instructive to reexamine the previous U.S. tribal engagement in Anbar as U.S. advisors once again plan for phases IV (stabilize) and V (enable civil authority) of joint operations…