Dep PM: "I was Mistaken" in Joining Govt

[It should not have] left the country to flail in a sea of problems and complexities that cannot be solved except through division or sectarian infighting. If the current approach continues, the choice [to establish a Sunni] region will outweigh the choices of division or civil war.

Al-Monitor:  How do you view the US approach to handing the Iraqi crisis? Do you support a large military intervention, or maintaining the current level of intervention?

Mutlaq:  As I said in my answer to the previous question, the United States was the one that should have been most committed to the Iraqi people, given that it was the primary one responsible for the collapse of the institutional state system and the strange structure of the current state. What is happening today in Iraq is all due to the United States.

The latter is the one that ousted a dictatorship full of flaws yet with state institutions, and brought about a new regime that is akin to flaws without a state. Moreover, Washington is bound to security agreements with Iraq. Although we are against any large-scale intervention of US forces on the ground, this does not negate the American side's obligations to prevent the spread of chaos in Iraq and prevent the country from falling prey to terrorist forces and militias, as well as autocratic policies and the establishment of a new dictatorship concealed by the guise of elections and imaginary democracy.

Al-Monitor:  There is talk about Sunni extremist organizations, as well as other nonextremist ones and tribal organizations. Do you believe that [talk of the existence of nonextremist Sunni groups], adopted by most Sunni forces, is true? If it is true, how can one make distinctions between ISIS and the rest of the factions on the ground? Do you think this is possible? And how?

Mutlaq:  Extremism exists in Iraq and is not limited to one sect alone. Yet, the faulty policies are what isolated the government from the people in Sunni regions and provinces and allowed armed groups to enter to try and fill the vacuum.