Why Defeating the IS won't bring Stability to Iraq

By Ali Mamouri for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Iraq’s most urgent challenge is to eliminate the Islamic State (IS), but that battle will be just a prelude to myriad conflicts in liberated areas such as Sinjar and Tuz Khormato if the rival parties can't reach a consensus on their future status.

The forces that helped liberate the areas — namely the peshmerga, Shiite militias and minority Sunni forces, among others — are already disputing who will control the lands.

Once Sinjar was freed Nov. 12 by various Kurdish and local Yazidi forces, armed and political conflicts ignited between forces of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) peshmerga.

The dispute seemed simple enough in the beginning, as Kurdistan, the PKK, Yazidis and others rushed to raise their partisan flags over major government buildings. But that rush prompted Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani to say Nov. 13 that only the Kurdistan flag could be raised.

That same day, Haider Shesho, commander of the Protection Force of Sinjar, accused the Kurdish parties involved in the fighting against IS of advancing their factional interests over those of Sinjar.

The current disputes in Sinjar reflect Kurdish internal conflict as well as Turkish influence on the Kurdish situation.

One Response to Why Defeating the IS won't bring Stability to Iraq

  1. George T Horvat 11th December 2015 at 15:44 #

    There's an old saying about different factions who are at odds with one another but at the same time are at war with a common enemy "The enemy of my enemy is my friend!"
    However once the common enemy is defeated the "STUPID" factions resume their differences with one another. Are you people that stupid that you learned nothing when fighting your common enemy. You just finished working together towards a common goal. Why can't you keep doing that? You're like little children playing in a sandbox. The sand is there for everybody. No one is entitled to all the sand for themselves. Learn how to share and how to respect one another. Remember: A donkey who is stubborn does not get fed.