The second major event was the fact that Sunni Muslim politicians agreed to let the Shiite Muslim militias enter the Sunni-majority city. And thirdly, it seems that the US – one of Iraq’s major allies, which had, up until recently, been lobbying for less of a powerful role for the Shiite militias, has also acquiesced to the need for the Shiite militias to fight in Ramadi.
These changes of heart – and policy – could be interpreted in a number of ways. The city of Ramadi is close to Baghdad, only around 100km away in fact. This puts the IS group not only closer to the Iraqi capital but also closer to the military bases, Habbaniya and Ain al-Assad, where US trainers and other US military personnel are located. One base is east of Ramadi and the other lies to the west.
The US clearly doesn’t want to withdraw its personnel from those bases. The bases would be difficult to attack anyway (IS fighters have tried and failed already) but to withdraw would be the US admitting defeat. However US advisers do seem to have realised that the Iraqi army isn’t capable of winning this fight alone, if at all. Airstrikes by the international coalition don’t seem to have been enough either.
A day after the fall of Ramadi, a number of senior Iraqi politicians held a meeting that was also attended by the US Ambassador to Iraq, Stuart Jones. The meeting was attended by leading Sunni politician, Salim al-Jibouri, who is Parliament’s Speaker, as well as members of Anbar’s provincial council.
Some of the council members apparently criticised US reluctance to directly arm the Sunnis in Anbar who were opposed to the IS group. One of the council members who attended the meeting but couldn’t be named because he was not at liberty to speak about it, told NIQASH that Ambassador Jones did not seem too concerned about the plans for Shiite militias to fight in Anbar. “The Ambassador said his country didn’t oppose them fighting in Anbar as long as they were still under the command of al-Abadi,” the council member said.
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