Are US and Iran-Backed Militias Getting Friendlier?

At the same time, despite misgivings by US politicians and commanders like Austin, the international coalition has been conducting air strikes that assist the Shiite militias. The repeated collapses of the Iraqi army, the failure to establish an Iraqi National Guard, that enlists other sects and ethnicities to fight against the IS group, and the fact that Sunni Muslim volunteers who want to fight the IS group haven't been assisted, are all reasons why closer cooperation with the Shiite militias seems inevitable.

Another problem for the US is an increasing antipathy between themselves and Sunni Muslim locals who say they would fight against the IS group. “The US ambassador promised us that his country wouldn’t let Anbar fall under the control of the IS group,” Saleh al-Issawi, deputy head of Anbar's provincial council, told NIQASH. “But the US didn't keep their promise. Sunnis can no longer trust the Americans.”

Locals also credit the new more convivial relationship between the US and the Shiite Muslim militias to the warmer relationship between the US and Iran. Some of the militias have long standing and close ties with, as well as funding from, neighbouring Iran; many Sunnis see the Shiite militias as proxies for Iran waging a war for more regional influence and power.

But the recent move toward a “framework agreement” on nuclear weapons development between the US and Iran also seems to have made the Iranian-sponsored militias a more palatable option in the fight against the IS group.