The decision by Iraqi prime minister Haidar al-Abadi to request US air strikes against Islamic State (IS) fighters entrenched at the heart of the strategic city of Tikrit was a defeat for Baghdad, Tehran and Gen Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian al-Quds force commander in charge of the operation.
He had intended to storm Tikrit in short order with a loose coalition of Shia militias, Iranian advisers and special forces, regular Iraqi army soldiers, and Sunni tribesmen.
Of the 30,000 anti-IS fighters involved, more than 20,000 were Shia militiamen, 2,000 were said to be Sunni tribesmen, and 3,000 regular soldiers. The number of Iranians involved is unknown.
The sheer size of the attacking force was expected to drive 400-750 IS fighters from the city. However, IS had deployed suicide bombers, laid mines and explosive devices on the approaches to Tikrit, placed booby traps in buildings and positioned snipers to halt the advance.
Stall
At least 1,000 Shia militiamen died in the initial assault. After 15 days of fighting, the attrition rate forced Suleimani to mandate a two-day pause which has turned into a stall.
Al-Abadi, his army commanders, and the interior ministry called for a new strategy and last week asked for US air action. This began on March 26th on condition that the Shia militias (and presumably their Iranian advisers) would pull back from the front and give the lead to the Iraqi army.
The condition has not been met. Although several militias did return to Baghdad, depleting the strength of these groupings, the largest, the Badr Organisation's militia – formed by Iran during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war and commanded by Hadi al-Amiri – remains in the field.
He vows to stay on and deny the US “victory” in Tikrit. The US has continued air strikes. Such action enabled Kurdish peshmerga, National Mobilisation units, and other forces to regain IS-captured territory elsewhere.
The politics of the battle for Tikrit have also been mismanaged. A senior member of the Shia fundamentalist Dawa party that battled the regime of former president Saddam Hussein, Abadi went along with the Shia-militia-first strategy designed by Suleimani instead of considering the sectarian implications of this approach.
Abadi should have made an effort to persuade Tikritis, most of whom fled when the offensive began, that the ouster of IS would be in their interests and they would be included in the governance of the country.
Since he did not do this, non-IS Sunnis were among the defenders, including alienated tribesmen, former Baath part officials and cashiered army officers barred from posts since the 2003 US occupation.
Furthermore, the residents of Tikrit and the other IS- occupied cities of Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul deeply resent the Dawa-dominated government and, at least initially, welcomed IS. Most fear Shia militias more than IS, particularly since these militias may be bent on taking revenge for the slaying of 1,000 Shia air force cadets by IS last summer.
Iconic city
Tikrit is an iconic city for both sides. For IS, it is a Sunni city in a Sunni province that resisted the 2003 US occupation. For the government and Shia militias, the city is the base of Saddam Hussein’s entourage that persecuted Dawa, founded in 1957 as an alternative to secular politics and adopted by Iran after its 1979 revolution.
The stalled battle for Tikrit has made uneasy allies of the US and Iran which need each other if IS is to be expelled from the city and the government is to reassert its authority.
If and when Tikrit falls and Iraqi forces begin to focus on Mosul, IS fighters can be expected to flow from Iraq into Syria to reinforce the cult's holdings in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor. The alliance will have to join forces against IS in these areas as well if IS and its al-Qaeda nemesis Jabhat al-Nusra are to be uprooted.
If this does not happen, IS and Nusra will reassert themselves in Iraq as did their parent organisation, al-Qaeda’s former local branch, Islamic State in Iraq after US forces withdrew in 2011.