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U.S.-Iran Proxy Competition in Iraq

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Post-2014: A Stew of Potential Proxies and Patrons

Many of the proxies, patrons, and relationships of support generated in past periods of proxy intervention were very much present when ISIS began its rapid advance in 2014. However, the political and security crisis generated by ISIS’s takeover of large parts of northern and central Iraq further added to the number of potential proxies, and to the complexity of the proxy environment.

In the span of roughly a week in June 2014, ISIS seized a large swath of northern and central Iraq, from the Syrian border to the perimeter of oil-rich Kirkuk, from the second largest city of Mosul nearly to the edge of the Baghdad belt, the territory just north of Baghdad.1 In the face of these rapid advances, the Iraqi security forces collapsed and fled. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa, calling on Iraqi citizens to defend the Iraqi state.2

This existential threat, and Sistani’s call to arms, sparked mass mobilization across Iraq’s diverse constituencies, parties, and forces. Most prominent was the mobilization and formation of the PMF, whose official government salary numbers have hovered around 125,000 since late 2016 (the number of Hashd may be higher if unofficial, affiliated forces and groups are also included).3 While the PMF is most known for the pro-Iran Shi’a forces that form its leadership,4 it includes some 50 or more groups, which span the full spectrum of Iraq’s ethnic, political, and sectarian diversity, and not all of whom identify or align with Iran.5

Much of the attention has focused on the PMF, but other groups and constituencies also seized the moment, adding to the plethora of sub-state forces and competing proxy alignments. Kurdish parties and forces affiliated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (the KRG) also mobilized against the ISIS threat and used the crisis moment to expand their stockpiles and regular salaried forces. KRG forces—to include official Ministry of Peshmerga forces, as well as forces associated with the PUK and the KDP parties—received support not only from the United States and Coalition countries,6 but also from Iran7 and Turkey.8

The PKK—the transnational Kurdish militant group engaged in an armed conflict with Turkey—had long been present in parts of north and central Iraq and self-mobilized against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. The PKK’s victories against ISIS on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border gave them greater territorial control, a number of local partners, and a strange-bedfellows mixture of patrons and allies (both Iran and the United States), all of which further complicated conflict dynamics and proxy considerations in the post-2014 period.9

Within both the PMF and Kurdish blocks, there were also a number of smaller, local forces, mostly mobilized from areas threatened or liberated from ISIS.10 They were ultimately bit players in the larger proxy game afoot, but they came with their own independent political valences, local interests, and international backers, which added to the complexity of local-to-national proxy competition. This included various religio-ethnic forces—for example, Christian,11 Yezidi, Shabak, or other minority forces—as well as a range of Sunni tribal forces and other groups mobilized around a local political leader.12

Many of these smaller forces and minority groups mobilized independently, but quickly came under the salary or patronage of either the Peshmerga or of individual Hashd forces (and sometimes swapped between those camps).13 Some of them mobilized with the support and encouragement of foreign backers. The United States supported a small, Sunni tribal mobilization program in Ninewa and Anbar, known as the Tribal Mobilization Force (TMF) in U.S. policy circles,14 and Turkey supported the forces of former Ninewa Governor Atheel Nujaifi around Mosul.15 TMF will be used hereinafter to distinguish U.S.-supported tribal forces, as there were other Sunni tribal forces who received no U.S. support.16

After the PMF law passed in November 2016 the only legal route to have a standing force (outside of the Peshmerga) was via the PMF.17 Many of these groups then formally came under the PMF, with salaries and support provided through the Iraqi budget; however, this did not necessarily mean that the foreign ties and support ceased. Nujaifi’s forces continued to receive support (primarily training) from Turkey after they became part of the PMF.18 U.S. and Coalition support to some of the Sunni tribal and other minority forces within the PMF continued at least through 2019, including training, equipment, weapons, and some subsidization of their salaries.19

Lastly, amidst this stew of local, hybrid, and sub-state forces (hybrid denoting groups like the PMF and the KRG parties that blend aspects of formal power and authority with that held outside of, and in competition with the state),20 there also was the potential for sub-parts of the state to act as proxies for foreign patrons. As the background section suggested, officials and even entire Iraqi ministries and agencies have frequently been co-opted and viewed as under the control of external states since 2003.21 As Iraq historian Toby Dodge has argued, the post-2003 state that emerged was less of a prototypical or Weberian state and more of a shell or an arena for competition among a series of biddable actors, all open to external support and influence.22 The collapse of state forces in 2014 and the atmosphere of political crisis generated by ISIS’s takeover made these already porous Iraqi state institutions even more susceptible to pressure and cooption by external powers. The literature on proxy warfare has tended to identify proxies as either states as a whole23 or as the non-state rebel, insurgent, or terrorist groups contesting them.24 However, in Iraq, as in much of the Middle East, it may be more appropriate to consider institutions, officials, and subparts of the Iraqi state as separate and equally biddable proxies.

Zero-Sum Competition and Domestic Balancing

The end result of all of this mobilization and proliferation was that by 2016, Iraq was awash with an even greater number of potential proxies or surrogates than ever before. There were not only more armed parties available, but much more to fight over. The 2014 crisis created huge risks and huge opportunities for a range of domestic and international parties. The potential gains and losses to be had in this moment created something like a zero-sum competition among Iraqi stakeholders, which in turn would affect the degree to which external agendas might affect their behavior.

ISIS’s takeover of large parts of central and northern Iraq, and then the question of who would have authority or influence over these areas after ISIS was ousted, put up for grabs a number of strategic and hotly contested areas in Iraq.25 The areas that might be plausibly defended or claimed back from ISIS (and then dominated in their wake) included the Disputed Territories (the belt of territory that both the KRG and Baghdad claim),26 the economic hub of Mosul, the ideologically significant Shi’a Shrine city of Samarra, key transit routes that crisscrossed the country, and critical border areas in Ninewa, Anbar, and Diyala.

Control over these areas could yield significant strategic and economic dividends, from control of oil fields and pipelines in Kirkuk, to the ability to profit from important commercial routes and resources within liberated areas. Many of the transit routes and border areas offered lucrative smuggling routes, as well as access to Syria, which was crucial for both Iran and the United States to maintain access and supply lines to partners there.27

These areas also held crucial votes and political opportunities. Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution provides for an eventual (and long-postponed) referendum to determine the status of Kirkuk and other Disputed Territories based on the “will of their populations.”28 Whoever controlled these areas might be able to shift the population demographics and voting opportunities within them, helping decide a question central to the shape and writ of the Iraqi state.29

Beyond the Disputed Territories issue, many commentators have noted that the 2018 elections departed from the political trends of the prior 15 years because voting did not appear to be as pre-determined by ethno-sectarian blocks.30 This was even more so in areas of flux like the liberated areas, where high levels of displacement and the overall sense of political crisis had upended local political dynamics.31 As a result, asserting authority in these liberated areas offered those with both national and local political ambitions the chance to advance their base, or to undermine that of rivals.32

Last but certainly not least, the fact that these areas were a checkerboard of diverse ethnic and sectarian communities, including Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, Shabak, and Yezidi communities, also drove competition and intervention.33 These communities viewed not only the threat by ISIS, but also the prospect of competing, rival groups taking control of their territory in ISIS’s wake, as existential threats. External actors were also motivated by identity or solidarity ties to these groups and symbolically important areas. Threats to Samarra, to Shi’a pilgrimage routes, and to Shi’a communities in Salah ad-Din and Diyala helped fuel rapid Iranian support to counter ISIS in its initial stages, while the threatened genocide of Christian and Yezidi communities in the Ninewa Plains gained international attention, and galvanized previously reluctant Western states.34 As Shi’a PMF forces closed in on the divided Turkmen city of Tal Afar, Turkey declared that it would protect Turkmen groups within it.35

For all of these reasons, ISIS’s advances and then its expulsion set off heated competition to control these areas, or to prevent others from doing so.36 For many of the smaller, minority groups, prevailing in that competition was viewed as an existential question, fundamental to their community’s integrity and political survival. They mobilized their own forces in response and engaged in fierce competition with other rival sub-groups, allying with whichever national or international patron(s) seemed best able to protect their survival.37 In the Ninewa Plains, at least five different ethnically or politically aligned Christian or Shabak local forces mobilized and competed against each other.38 A similar dynamic emerged in Sinjar, with an even greater number of local Yezidi forces variously aligned to different Iraqi or external backers.39

For national forces and political parties, the stakes were equally high. With so many critical components of the Iraqi state up for grabs, the way that these competing claims and contests were resolved could reset power balances within Iraq, profoundly shifting which groups held the upper hand for years to come. The most active groups to compete for and assume more territory and clout in this post-2014 period have been the main sub-state forces that had the most to gain from upsetting the status quo—the two main KRG parties and their affiliated forces, and the larger Hashd forces.40 While they nominally supported the state and helped defeat ISIS, these hybrid forces more often pursued their own interests at the expense of state authority at both a micro- and macro-level.41

In the course of the defense against ISIS, Kurdish forces assumed control of significant parts of the Disputed Territories, including Kirkuk, and ultimately expanded their territory by 40 percent (until Baghdad retook these areas in October 2017).42 When asked about the KRG’s advances, specifically the Iraqi army’s inability to secure Kirkuk, KRG President Masoud Barzani was very candid: ​“I saw it in an opportunistic way.”43

The larger Shi’a PMF forces were equally aggressive in expanding their territorial reach. As areas were liberated from ISIS, PMF forces moved in to hold liberated areas on behalf of the government, nominally freeing up Iraqi forces to push forward against ISIS. This put PMF forces in charge of key transit routes and strategic areas across central and northern Iraq. By late 2017, they were either in control of or maintained free access across Diyala, in large parts of Salah ad-Din, as well as in key pockets of territory in Kirkuk and Ninewa, and on the border and in key checkpoints in Anbar.44

This competition for territorial control was closely connected to the promise of future political control, in both a local and national sense. The political and security vacuum created by ISIS’s expansion and expulsion created the potential for lines to be redrawn and power balances shifted, and for groups to be either excluded or empowered, at both a national and local level. That these opportunities for territorial and economic expansion were so closely followed by the more open 2018 elections only heightened the stakes, and the sense that there would be clear winners and losers from this transitional moment. This atmosphere of zero-sum competition is important for understanding the potential for cultivating proxy partnerships. While regional and international actors certainly saw it as a moment of profound threat to their security interests, meriting both direct and indirect engagement,45 the Iraqi actors they sought to cultivate as proxies had domestic, not international interests, at the top of their agenda. As will be expanded upon further below, at such a crucial moment, Iraqi interests and concerns rose to the top, limiting Iraqi stakeholders’ attention to external interests, even to those of their strongest backers.

Sub-State Proxy Warfare and Relationships

A final important contextual point is the way that the intense competition for control of key areas and overlapping linkages and interests between parties and forces generated what might be framed as a ‘sub-state’ proxy war. The strongest relationships of support and those that bear the greatest resemblance to proxy relationships have arisen between more and less powerful Iraqi actors, and driven by internal, sub-state competition, rather than external interests and intervention.

As they expanded into new territory, these hybrid actors tended to mobilize or co-opt local forces, in relationships that might best be analogized to proxy relationships in themselves. Badr and AAH (among other PMF forces) set up their own local affiliates or franchises across the territory they sought to influence and control, from Diyala, into Salah ad-Din and Kirkuk, and to a lesser degree in Ninewa and Anbar. This ranged from more natural bedfellows, like local Shi’a Turkmen communities in Tuz Khurmatu, Kirkuk,46 and Tal Afar, or Shabak PMF around Mosul, to partnerships that crossed sectarian and ethnic lines—a range of Sunni tribal PMF forces in Salah ad-Din,47 as well as some Sunni tribal leaders or forces, and other minority stakeholders in both Ninewa and Diyala.48 It is worth noting that subordinate forces tended to identify with their particular patron, for example, as a Badr, AAH, or Saray-as-Salam affiliate, rather than these subgroups having allegiance to the PMF as a whole.49

Similar to the larger PMF groups, Kurdish forces—the KDP, PUK, and the PKK—also sought to cultivate their own local surrogates or affiliates.50 The KDP put local Sunni Arab tribal forces in Rabi’a and Zummar, a number of Kaldo-Assyrian forces in the Ninewa Plains, and some Yezidi forces in Sinjar on the Peshmerga payroll as special minority units.51 The PUK has had a more limited range of local partnerships, but did co-opt elements of the local police or other local political actors when it controlled parts of Kirkuk and northern Tuz Khurmatu.52 The PKK also recruited their own affiliated Yezidi force, which still maintains a hold in Sinjar, in competition with PMF and KDP aligned forces and actors.53

The local-to-national relationships and conflict dynamics that emerged in these areas mirror many of the attributes of proxy warfare. Proxy warfare has been described as “warfare on the cheap” because it allows external actors to achieve strategic interests in areas outside of their home territory without the same costs and risks as direct intervention.54 In a similar vein, as groups like Badr or AAH, or the KDP or PUK pushed beyond their normal operating areas and constituencies—effectively external actors to these local areas—local forces offered a low-cost means to broker influence and maintain a presence. They offered local know-how, legitimacy, and extra manpower, as well as a layer of plausible deniability that lowered the risks of intervention and made it possible for these essentially external Iraqi stakeholders to stay vested even when it was no longer politically palatable.55 For example, at times there were formal restraints placed on non-local Hashd forces operating in places like Tuz Khurmatu, or around Mosul; however, these limits were easily circumvented because the larger Hashd forces could maintain influence and access via their local affiliates.56

In exchange, these Iraqi and Kurdish patrons provided the smaller groups with arms, training, and salaries (salary allocations under the PMF umbrella, or direct salary support via the Peshmerga) as well as political protection and backing. In many liberated areas, which forces were allowed to take responsibility as the security force, or “hold” force, on the ground was determined through agreements between the larger national stakeholders, between Baghdad and the KRG, between the PMF and the prime minister’s office, or between the PMF and the KRG. In areas like the Ninewa Plains, in Sinjar, or in Tuz Khurmatu, which local forces or actors got to stay in control and dominate the local area depended on which national stakeholder they aligned with, and the political protection that this patron could offer.57

While the lens of proxy warfare has traditionally not been applied at a sub-state level, between two or more internal parties, similar patterns of fragmentation and the rise of powerful non-state actors have generated increasing attention to this phenomenon in other parts of the Middle East. As the head of the International Crisis Group, Robert Malley as written, in these fragmented spaces, powerful non-state actors “operate as both proxies and independent players,” both challenging state control and making it hard to establish accountability.58 Studies of powerful non-state or “hybrid” forces in countries across the Middle East have recognized that they may equally play the role of proxies or patrons, seeking external backing but also in some cases simultaneously running their own sub-state proxies and strategies.59 Scholar Kim Cragin has coined the term “semi-proxy warfare” to describe such dynamics, arguing that the term “proxy war” fails to reflect the significant role of non-state or sub-state actors in driving conflict and surrogacy dynamics in places like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.60

While these sub-state proxy ties and alignments appeared stronger than external ones, they were not entirely divorced from externally driven proxy strategies. External support from regional powers like Iran and Turkey, or from the U.S. and other Coalition forces, was also inter-mixed with these local-to-national support relationships. As noted earlier, U.S. and Coalition forces and Turkey provided direct support, training, or other support to some of the Sunni and other minority subgroups within the PMF.61 These other sources of support gave these smaller groups some degree of independence from the larger Hashd structure, and made it less likely that they would act as local proxies for the larger Shi’a PMF groups.62 Some of the Sunni or minority PMF groups also claimed that they were supported by Iran, although it was not always clear that this was through an independent relationship rather than something that was presumed or indirect because they received funding from Iranian-affiliated groups like Badr or AAH.63

As a result of these dynamics, what emerged in many areas was a sort of layered proxy competition, with proxy or partner relationships manifesting between local forces and national patrons, between those national patron-forces and larger foreign backers, and sometimes also direct relationships between foreign patrons and very localized forces. The overlapping connections between local, national, regional, and international ties meant that local competition could quickly escalate up, with local conflicts bringing about national or regional ramifications; and vice versa—national or regional rivalries drove local conflict escalation in hotspot communities across central and northern Iraq.64

The post-2014 situation in Iraq presented in some ways both the best- and worst-case conditions for proxy warfare. There were any number of potential proxies seeking resources and patronage. Given the history of proxy intervention in Iraq, many of these groups already had ties and linkages to external patrons. Moreover, the Iraqi state was not only too weak to prevent external intervention, but its divided and fractious constituent parts were as likely to aid and abet proxy competition as to block it.

While these elements encouraged proxy intervention, other post-2014 dynamics made such partnerships more challenging. The overlapping and often conflicting connections between local, national, and foreign stakeholders created a highly complex and unstable environment for proxy relationships. The quantity of potential proxy and patron relationships, and frequent flux between these groups and in their allegiances, made it difficult to gauge interests and affiliations. A classic dilemma, long recognized in proxy warfare literature, is the difficulty of fully knowing a proxy’s intentions and constraining or controlling a proxy’s actions.65 The multiplicity of actors and complexity of relationships in Iraq increased the sort of information asymmetries that make this dilemma so acute. Moreover, the availability of different patrons and the zero-sum competitive environment made any partnerships that were formed more unreliable, because groups could easily switch sides and alignments at will.66 It was a classic application of assumptions within principal-agent theory that proxies will be more difficult to control when they have multiple potential backers, because their options for defaulting or shirking their duties increase.67 The prevalence of sub-state proxy relationships posed an additional challenge. Those closest to the ground, in particular the larger hybrid actors, were better able to manage the rapid fluctuations in relationships and interests than external actors, which tended to give their proxy maneuvers an edge on those driven by purely external actors.

All of these factors combined to produce an environment in which proxies were abundant, but difficult to fully control, particularly by external states. The subsequent sections will illustrate how such dynamics played out in U.S. and Iranian partnerships with Iraqi actors, and what the dynamics in Iraq suggest about the future of proxy warfare.

Citations
  1. Erica Gaston and András Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control” (Berlin, Germany: Global Public Policy institute, April 6, 2018), 16–17, source
  2. Sistani’s fatwa appeared intended to reinforce failing Iraqi forces, but was instead relied upon to legitimate the PMF mobilization. Mansour and Jabar, “The Popular Mobilization Forces and Iraq’s Future,” 7.
  3. The number of PMF forces has ebbed and flowed over time with most estimates suggesting 110,000 to 125,000 supported by the Iraqi budget at any given time, but a higher number of unofficial forces. For example, Mansour and Jabar cited 110,000 forces on budget in November 2016, but estimated that 140,000 exist. Abbas found that the official number supported in the budget had risen to 122,000 by mid-2017 but was told by a PMF source that they had 141,000 members. Abbas, “The Myth and Reality of Iraq’s Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) : A Way Forward,” 5–7. However, there have been some higher estimates. The Institute for Regional and International Studies reported information it had received from the Prime Minister’s office in February 2018 of “an estimated 152,000 combatants registered with the PMF, of which roughly 120,000 were receiving salaries from the central government.” Jacqueline Parry and Emily Burlinghaus, “Reintegration of Combatants in Iraq Ater ISIL” (Sulaimani: Institute of Regional and International Studies, 2019), 4, source Interviews with Iraqi researchers closely tracking PMF numbers suggested 122,000 on the payroll at the end of Abadi’s term, but that these were increased following the appointment of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in 2019, by some 20 to 30,000 forces. Telephone call February 13, 2019; Interview with Iraqi researcher, March 12, 2019, Baghdad, Iraq. While the number of salary posts have not been publicly disclosed, the 2019 Iraqi budget increased funding for the PMF by roughly 20 percent, to $2.16 billion. Omar Al-Nidawi, “The Growing Economic and Political Role of Iraq’s PMF,” Middle East Institute, 2019, source There is also ambiguity in the total number of Hashd forces because a number of the groups are presumed to have unofficial Hashd forces, which exist but are not registered or paid by the Iraqi government. For example, some of the recognized Hashd groups may have forces that are within an official, salaried Hashd brigades, but there are also other forces without brigade numbers and that do not fall inside the Hashd commission. Interview with Renad Mansour, January 15, 2020, London, United Kingdom.
  4. Pro-Iranian forces known as the “pro-Khameini” camp in the PMF, and particularly Badr, Asa’ib ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, dominate the Popular Mobilization Commission, which is responsible for the overall direction and operations of the Hashd, as well as any other financial and administrative matters. Mansour and Jabar, “The Popular Mobilization Forces and Iraq’s Future,” 17–18. The Badr Organization’s Hadi al-Amri has been the de facto political leader of the PMF, and Kata’ib Hezbollah’s leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was the PMF’s leading operational commander before his death in 2020. Mansour, “Iraq after the Fall of ISIS: The Struggle for the State,” 15; Malas, “The Militia Commander Beating Back ISIS in Iraq Makes the U.S. Nervous.”
  5. The number of groups has fluctuated over time, as some groups have merged or ceased to exist, and the official status of some groups was never clear. A helpful, frequently updated index of the groups based on public information and reporting is available at the Aymenn Jawad, “Hashd Brigade Numbers Index,” Aymennjawad.org, accessed December 11, 2019, source As of October 31, 2017, the index listed 60 different brigades, although it suggested that at least seven of them no longer existed or had merged into other brigades. These brigades included some 45 groups, including those that are affiliates of one of the larger PMF groups, such as Badr or Asa’ib ahl al-Haq.
  6. International Crisis Group, “Arming Iraq’s Kurds: Fighting IS, Inviting Conflict,” 16–18; Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” notes 33-34; Rod Thornton, “Problems with the Kurds as Proxies against Islamic State: Insights from the Siege of Kobane,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 26, no. 6 (2015): 874, source On paper nearly all of the U.S. and Coalition support went only to the unified Regional Guard Brigades under the Ministry of Peshmerga, and all of it was coordinated via Baghdad, but much of it trickled out to the more competent but also more politicized KDP and PUK party forces, and particularly to the KDP. Ibid. See also Fazel Hawramy, “Kurdish Peshmerga Divisions Hamper War Effort,” Al Monitor, January 13, 2018, source ; Wladimir Van Wilgenburg and Mario Fumertonn, “Kurdistan’s Political Armies: The Challenge of Unifying the Peshmerga Forces” (Beirut: Carnegie Middle East Center, 2015), source Parry and Burlinghaus, “Reintegration of Combatants in Iraq Ater ISIL,” 11–12.
  7. In 2014, as ISIS threatened KRG borders, Iran was the first to come to its aid, and Iran’s political influence as well as military support via the PMF helped the PUK hold a wider swath of the Disputed Territories (the belt of territory that both the KRG and Baghdad claim as within their scope of authority) during the 2014 to 2017 period. International Crisis Group, “Arming Iraq’s Kurds: Fighting IS, Inviting Conflict,” 13–14, 22–23.
  8. There has been no evidence of direct material support from Turkey to the KDP post-2014, but both Turkey and the KDP were aligned in trying to constrain and push back the PKK in Ninewa. International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar” (Brussels, 2018), 1–2, 5–6, source ; Christine van den Toorn, “The Wars After the War for Sinjar: How Washington Can Avert a New Civil War,” War on the Rocks, June 20, 2016, source
  9. International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar,” 6–8; International Crisis Group, “Arming Iraq’s Kurds: Fighting IS, Inviting Conflict,” 14, 22–23; Thornton, “Problems with the Kurds as Proxies against Islamic State: Insights from the Siege of Kobane”; Bilal Wahab, “Iran’s Warming Relations with the PKK Could Destabilize the KRG,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 6, 2017, source
  10. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 24–28.
  11. Christians in Iraq identify with different confessional traditions and ethnic identities – to include predominantly Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syriac in Iraq – and the different Christian forces often reflect these political, confessional, or ethnic splits. For sake of brevity, this paper will use the generic term Christians. For a brief discussion of such distinctions, see Maxim Edwards, “Ethnic Dimension of Iraqi Assyrians Often Ignored,” Al Monitor, October 5, 2014, source
  12. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 20–28.
  13. Erica Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, April 20, 2018, source
  14. Author interviews suggest that U.S. outreach to tribal leaders began in late 2014, and that TMF units started to be active by mid-2015. U.S. officials were tasked to do the same in Ninewa beginning in February 2015. The U.S. provided training, equipment, and salary support for Sunni tribal forces (and some other local and minority forces) in Anbar and Ninewa governorates. The U.S. subsidized salaries and equipment (both provided via the Iraqi government), and U.S. officials helped monitor the training and activities of the TMF. TMF received training by both U.S. and Coalition officers in several bases in Ninewa and Anbar. At their peak, the number formally registered with the program included close to 35,000 forces, although this likely included numerous “ghost” forces and part-time fighters. Interview with U.S. official, December 7, 2016, Erbil, Iraq. This information was gathered as part of a prior research project and the information published in Erica Gaston, “Sunni Tribal Forces,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 30, 2017, source See also infra note 124 providing sources discussing the origin of the tribal mobilization idea.
  15. Turkey provided training and reportedly salaries and arms (though Turkey denies this) to the 3,000-strong Ninewa Guards affiliated with former governor Ateel Nujaifi in the Mosul area. Rise Foundation, “Post-ISIS Mosul Context Analysis” (Erbil, 2017), 19–20, source ; Erica Gaston, “Mosul,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 21, 2017, source Author interview with Ateel Nujaifi, March 2, 2017, Erbil, Iraq; Author interview with deputy of Ninewa Guards Force, March 5, 2017. Some Sunni political or military leaders may have received Gulf patronage and support during this period. However, the scant evidence of this suggests that Gulf funding was minimal and ad hoc in the post-2014 period.
  16. There are also other Sunni tribal PMF, also called hashd as-shairi, which received no U.S. or Coalition support. This was particularly the case in governorates like Salah ad-Din and Diyala, which the TMF program did not extend to. See, e.g., Gaston, “Sunni Tribal Forces”; Erica Gaston and Frauke Maas, “Tikrit and Surrounding Areas,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy Institute, August 29, 2017, source ; Zmkan Ali Saleem, Mac Skelton, and Christine M. van den Toorn, “Security and Governance in the Disputed Territories Under a Fractured GOI: The Case of Northern Diyala,” Middle East Centre Blog, London School of Economics, November 14, 2018, source
  17. Armed groups operating “outside the framework of the armed forces” are prohibited under Article 9 of the Iraqi constitution. “Full Text of the Iraqi Constitution,” AP/The Washington Post, 12.10.2005, available from source
  18. Nujaifi denied that Turkish support involved salary support, and said it mostly involved training and equipment. Author interview with Ateel Nujaifi, March 2, 2017, Erbil, Iraq; Author interview with deputy of Ninewa Guards Force, March 5, 2017. It is not clear how long Turkey continued to provide training after Nujaifi’s forces joined the PMF, but it may not have exceeded the Mosul campaign, given increasing pressures for Turkey to remove its forces from training bases in northern Iraq. Rise Foundation, “Post-ISIS Mosul Context Analysis,” 19–20; Gaston, “Mosul.” Nadia Riva, “Withdrawal of Turkish Troops from Iraq Soon to Come: Iraqi PM,” Kurdistan24.Net, July 17, 2017, source
  19. During the course of research U.S. and Coalition training and support was still ongoing, with less than 20,000 forces still registered as active in the program. Interview with Senior U.S. military officer, March 9, 2019, Baghdad, Iraq; interview with U.S. military intelligence officer, October 10, 2018, Erbil, Iraq. Given that the U.S. views many of the leading groups in the PMF as terrorist groups, when the TMF was brought under the PMF, the U.S. officials proposed segregating the TMF-vetted forces from the larger command and control and budgetary processes of the PMF, for example, by creating separate brigades for these TMF or otherwise silo-ing any U.S. budgetary support to TMF forces. Skype conversation with U.S. official in Iraq, July 3, 2017. It has never been clear exactly how budgetary and administrative practices were separated, and if indeed they were. However, interviews in Anbar and Ninewa with Iraqi officials and tribal forces suggest that TMF forces were in practice under the command of Iraqi Security Forces, whether under the Federal Police in their area or under one of the ISF regional commands, rather than to the PMF operational command. Erica Gaston, “Qayyara,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 2, 2017, source ; Gaston, “Sunni Tribal Forces.” Supporting research interview (telephone) with member of A’ali al-Furat (a tribal force in al-Qaim), May 27, 2019. Supporting research interview (telephone) with commander in the Jazira operations command March 29, 2019.
  20. Cambanis et al., Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East; Renad Mansour and Erwin van Veen, “Iraq’s Competing Security Forces After the Battle for Mosul,” War on the Rocks, August 2017, source
  21. Scholars generally attribute the susceptibility to foreign interference to two factors: the weakness built into the Iraqi state structure (designed to prevent a strong Saddam-era state from recurring) and the emergence of “neo-patrimonialist” and clientalistic power dynamics across Iraqi institutions. The built-in muhasasa quota system further anchored a patronage- and identity-based system of state spoils, and positions were equally able to be bid for and captured by either domestic or international actors. For more on each of these points, see Mansour, “Iraq after the Fall of ISIS: The Struggle for the State,” 7–8; Dodge, Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism; Herring and Rangwala, Iraq in Fragments : The Occupation and Its Legacy, 129–38; Denise Natali, The Kurdish Quasi-State (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University, 2010), 103–4; Toby Dodge, “Muhasasa Ta’ifiya and Its Others: Domination and Contestation in Iraq’s Political Field,” Project on Middle East Political Science 35 (2019): 38–46, source
  22. Dodge, “Muhasasa Ta’ifiya and Its Others: Domination and Contestation in Iraq’s Political Field.” Toby Dodge, “Understanding the role of al-Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq’s national and transnational political field,” The Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) (forthcoming 2020) (on file with author).
  23. See, e.g., Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, “The Strategy of War by Proxy,” Cooperation and Conflict 19 (1984): 263–65; Karl W. Deutsch, “External Involvement in Internal War,” in Internal War, ed. Harry Eckstein (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), 102.
  24. See, e.g., Andrew Mumford, Proxy Warfare (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013), 1–2, 11; Byman, Deadly Connections; Daniel Byman, “Why Be a Pawn to a State? Proxy Wars From a Proxy’s Perspective,” Lawfare, May 22, 2018, source ; Idean Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (2010): 493–515, source ; Jeffrey M. Bale, “Terrorists as State: Separating Fact from Fiction,” in Making Sense of Proxy Wars : States, Surrogates & the Use of Force, ed. Michael A. Innes (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2012), 1–30.
  25. Mansour, “Iraq after the Fall of ISIS: The Struggle for the State”; Joost Hiltermann, “Iraq: The Battle to Come,” The New York Review of Books, July 1, 2017, source
  26. For more on the complex conflict lines over the Disputed Territories, see Sean Kane, “Iraq’s Disputed Territories” (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 2011), source ; Liam D. Anderson and Gareth R. V. Stansfield, Crisis in Kirkuk : The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). International Crisis Group, “Iraq’s New Battlefront: The Struggle over Ninewa,” (Brussels: September 28, 2009), source For a concise history of the long-standing Kurdish push for autonomy and cycles of conflict with Baghdad, see Human Rights Watch, “Anfal Campaign: Genocide in Iraq : The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds” (New York, 1993), chapters 1-3, source
  27. Brandon Friedman, “Iran’s Hezbollah Model in Iraq and Syria: Fait Accompli?,” Orbis 62, no. 3 (2018): 449, source ; Seth G. Jones, “War by Proxy: Iran’s Growing Footprint in the Middle East” (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2019), 5, source ; Hiltermann, “Iraq: The Battle to Come.”
  28. Iraq Constitution, Art. 140, available at source See also International Crisis Group, “Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk” (Brussels, 2006), 11–16, source ; Kane, “Iraq’s Disputed Territories.”
  29. Erica Gaston and Mario Shulz, “At the Tip of the Spear: Armed Groups’ Impact on Displacement and Return in Post-ISIL Iraq” (Berlin: Global Public Policy institute, 2019), source
  30. Renad Mansour and Christine Van Den Toorn, “The 2018 Iraqi Federal Elections” (London,: LSE Middle East Center/ Institute of Regional and International Studies, 2018), source ; Toby Dodge et al., “Iraq Synthesis Paper Understanding the Drivers of Conflict in Iraq Conflict Research Programme,” accessed August 21, 2019, source
  31. See, e.g., International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar,” 11; International Crisis Group, “Iraq’s Paramilitary Groups: The Challenge of Rebuilding a Functioning State” (Brussels, 2018), 7–9, source ; Gaston and Shulz, “At the Tip of the Spear: Armed Groups’ Impact on Displacement and Return in Post-ISIL Iraq.”
  32. Examples of the way that seizure of liberated areas could advance local or national political agendas can be found in Gaston and Shulz, “At the Tip of the Spear: Armed Groups’ Impact on Displacement and Return in Post-ISIL Iraq”; Gaston and Maas, “Tikrit and Surrounding Areas.” Interviewees also frequently mentioned political and electoral gains as an independent motivation explaining the PMF’s territorial advances, distinct from Iran’s interests.
  33. For further discussion of these minority groups, see Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 24–28; Christine van den Toorn and Sarah Mathieu-Comtois, “Sinjar after ISIS” (The Hague: PAX, 2016), source
  34. Al-Salhy and Arango, “Iraq Militants, Pushing South, Aim at Capital”; Chulov, “Iran Sends Troops into Iraq to Aid Fight against Isis Militants”; International Crisis Group, “Arming Iraq’s Kurds: Fighting IS, Inviting Conflict,” 16–17.
  35. Bill Roggio and Amir Toumaj, “Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces close in on Tal Afar,” Long War Journal, November 23, 2016, source ; Middle East Institute, “Iran-led Militia Forces Planning to Seize Iraq’s Tal Afar,” December 20, 2016, source ; Patrick Cockburn, “'Isis is full of killers, the worst come from Tal Afar': Bitter fight for city ahead and the violence may not end there,” November 15, 2016, source A more cynical reading would be that this provided the pretext for more direct Turkish intervention in the PKK’s area of operations in Ninewa. With all of these external actors, there has frequently been a mix of ideological, strategic, and economic motivations for intervention.
  36. Mansour, “Iraq after the Fall of ISIS: The Struggle for the State,” 2. For examples of clashes between these local forces, often representing national stakeholders or interests, see, e.g., van den Toorn, “The Wars After the War for Sinjar: How Washington Can Avert a New Civil War”; Ali Saleem, Skelton, and van den Toorn, “Security and Governance in the Disputed Territories Under a Fractured GOI: The Case of Northern Diyala”; András Derzsi-Horváth, “Tuz,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 16, 2017, source ; Mac Skelton and Karam Bahnam, “The Bishop and the Prime Minister: Mediating Conflict in the Nineveh Plains,” London School of Economics Middle East Centre Blog, January 25, 2019, source ; RISE Foundation, “Mosul and Tel Afar Context Analysis” (Erbil, 2017), source
  37. Erica Gaston, “Hamdaniya District,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 5, 2017, source ; van den Toorn and Mathieu-Comtois, “Sinjar after ISIS”; Nour Malas, “Iraq’s Christians Take Up Arms to Fight Islamic State,” Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2015, source
  38. The Christian force known as the NPF and Shabak PMF forces, both of which aligned with Baghdad and the PMF, ultimately prevailed over the other three, whose forces went into exile in the KRG after the reversal in KRG fortunes. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 26–27, 35–36; Skelton and Bahnam, “The Bishop and the Prime Minister: Mediating Conflict in the Nineveh Plains.”
  39. International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar”; van den Toorn, “The Wars After the War for Sinjar: How Washington Can Avert a New Civil War”; van den Toorn and Mathieu-Comtois, “Sinjar after ISIS”; Wahab, “Iran’s Warming Relations with the PKK Could Destabilize the KRG.” KDP forces were also directly present prior to the October 2017 confrontation with Baghdad, as were other external PMF and ISF forces.
  40. Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control”; Erica Gaston and András Derzsi-Horváth, “It’s Too Early to Pop Champagne in Baghdad: The Micro-Politics of Territorial Control in Iraq,” War on the Rocks, October 24, 2017, source
  41. As analysts Renad Mansour and Erwin van Veen have described, these hybrid security actors both “command coercive capacities but compete and cooperate with state security forces at the same time.” Mansour and van Veen, “Iraq’s Competing Security Forces After the Battle for Mosul.” See also Cambanis et al., Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East, ix–x, 22–37, 91–95.
  42. Elizabeth Coles and Stephen Kalin, “In Fight against Islamic State, Kurds Expand Their Territory,” Reuters, October 10, 2016, source For further description of Kurdish territorial expansion and then contraction before and after the October 2017 referendum, see Mac Skelton and Zmkan Ali Saleem, “Iraq’s Disputed Internal Boundaries after ISIS: Hetereogeneous Actors Vying for Influence” (London: LSE/Institute of Regional and International Studies, 2019), 8–9.
  43. Dexter Filkins, “The Fight for Their Lives,” The New Yorker, September 29, 2014, source
  44. By late 2017, when the major operations with ISIS were considered over, Shi’a PMF forces were in largely in control of all of Diyala; they held total control in some districts of Salah ad-Din (e.g., Tuz Khurmatu, Samarra, Baiji), and retained free access across others (e.g. by holding control of the checkposts on the Highway 1 transit route that runs from Tikrit, north into Ninewa, and is also the key transit route to Erbil); they held key positions in central and Western Ninewa (e.g. Tal Afar) and maintained local partnerships that allowed access in other areas where they were formally prohibited (Mosul area); and key border positions along the Anbar and Ninewa border areas with Syria. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 29–55; Ali Saleem, Skelton, and van den Toorn, “Security and Governance in the Disputed Territories Under a Fractured GOI: The Case of Northern Diyala”; Gaston and Shulz, “At the Tip of the Spear: Armed Groups’ Impact on Displacement and Return in Post-ISIL Iraq.” Thanassis Cambanis, “Social Engineering in Samarra” (New York: The Century Foundation, 2019), source After the Kurdish referendum, PMF forces helped the government re-take control of Kirkuk, expanding PMF territorial reach in Kirkuk, which before had been limited to pockets on the border with Salah ad-Din.
  45. For examples and discussion of foreign powers’ perception of threat in the post-2014 period, see Barack Obama, “Statement by the President on ISIL, September 10, 2014” (Washington, D.C., 2014), source ; Arango et al., “The Iran Cables: Secret Documents Show How Tehran Wields Power in Iraq.” Of particular note, leaked Iranian intelligence cables (published by the Intercept and the New York Times) suggest that Iran viewed the increased U.S. and Coalition air assets and troops deployed over Iraq as a potential threat to Iran, and that Iranian officials Iran responded by reinforcing their political grip on key Iraqi ministries and offices. For a brief timeline of foreign intervention, see András Derzsi-Horváth, “Fracturing of the State: Recent Historical Events Contributing to the Proliferation of Local, Hybrid, and Sub-State Forces,” Global Public Policy institute, August 24, 2017, source
  46. Derzsi-Horváth, “Tuz”; András Derzsi-Horváth, “Kirkuk,” Global Public Policy institute: Iraq after ISIL, August 30, 2017, source
  47. Saray-as Salam was also active in developing partnerships with Sunni tribal forces in Samarra. Thanassis Cambanis, “Could A Sunni City Run By Shia Militias Be The Future Of Iraq?,” The Atlantic, May 10, 2019, source ; Cambanis, “Social Engineering in Samarra.”
  48. Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control”; Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “It’s Too Early to Pop Champagne in Baghdad: The Micro-Politics of Territorial Control in Iraq”; Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control.” Some of these partnerships are identified in listing of Hashd Brigade numbers, as in this tracking website: Jawad, “Hashd Brigade Numbers Index.”
  49. See, e.g., Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 53. Nada and Rowan, “Part 2: Pro-Iran Militias in Iraq”; Jawad, “Hashd Brigade Numbers Index.”
  50. International Crisis Group, “Arming Iraq’s Kurds: Fighting IS, Inviting Conflict,” 24. Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control.”
  51. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 22–25; Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control”; International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar,” 4–6.
  52. Derzsi-Horváth, “Tuz”; Derzsi-Horváth, “Kirkuk.”
  53. International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar,” 4–6; van den Toorn, “The Wars After the War for Sinjar: How Washington Can Avert a New Civil War”; Wahab, “Iran’s Warming Relations with the PKK Could Destabilize the KRG.”
  54. Andrew Mumford, “Proxy Warfare and the Future of Conflict,” The RUSI Journal 158, no. 2 (2007): 1, source
  55. For discussions of some of the costs or risks that patrons seek to avoid through indirect, proxy intervention, and also the advantages that local forces have to offer, see Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 503–4; Daniel Byman, “Why Engage in Proxy War? A State’s Perspective,” Lawfare, May 21, 2018, source ; Tyrone L. Groh, Proxy War: The Least Bad Option (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019), 31.
  56. Restrictions on PMF behavior were the product of agreements brokered by the Iraqi government (as with Tuz), agreements between the PMF and the KRG (as in the demarcation of areas of operation in pre-October 2017 operations in Kirkuk), or prime ministerial orders not to operate in certain areas (as with Mosul). Derzsi-Horváth, “Tuz”; Derzsi-Horváth, “Kirkuk”; Gaston, “Mosul.” The situation offers an interesting parallel with a specific element within proxy warfare literature: Geraint Hughes notes that the plausible deniability and indirect means of intervening may be necessary in some cases because of legal restraints on intervention. Hughes, My Enemy’s Enemy, 23–24.
  57. Gaston, “Hamdaniya District”; Derzsi-Horváth, “Tuz”; International Crisis Group, “Winning the Post-ISIS Battle for Iraq in Sinjar.”
  58. Robert Malley, “Why the Middle East Is More Combustible Than Ever,” Foreign Affairs (New York, November 2019), source On the rise of non-state actor in contributing to the prevalence of proxy warfare, see Seyom Brown, “Purposes and Pitfalls of War by Proxy: A Systemic Analysis,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27, no. 2 (2016): 243–57.
  59. Cambanis et al., Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East; Malley, “Why the Middle East Is More Combustible Than Ever”; Renad Mansour and Peter Salisbury, “Between Order and Chaos: A New Approach to Stalled State Transformations in Iraq and Yemen” (London: Chatham House, 2019), source ; R. Kim Cragin, “Semi-Proxy Wars and U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 5 (May 4, 2015): 311–27, source
  60. Cragin.
  61. Gaston and Derzsi-Horváth, “Iraq After ISIL: Sub-State Actors, Local Forces, and the Micro-Politics of Control,” 24–28. See supra notes 46 and 50 and accompanying text.
  62. Gaston, “Sunni Tribal Forces.”
  63. For example, in interviews with two senior Hashd commanders both referred to “support by Iran” but their more direct relationship was with Badr, and most salaries, training, equipment and other support likely came directly through Badr. Interview with Hashd faction leader, March 10, 2019, Baghdad, Iraq. Interview with Rian Kaldani, Baghdad, Iraq, March 14, 2019.
  64. See, e.g., International Crisis Group, “Reviving UN Mediation on Iraq’s Disputed Internal Boundaries” (Brussels, 2018), source ; van den Toorn, “The Wars After the War for Sinjar: How Washington Can Avert a New Civil War”; Athanasios Manis and Tomáš Kaválek, “The Catch-22 in Nineveh: The Regional Security Complex Dynamics between Turkey and Iran” (Erbil; Middle East Research Institute, 2016), source
  65. See, e.g., Byman, “Why Engage in Proxy War? A State’s Perspective”; Daniel Byman, “Friends like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism,” International Security 31, no. 2 (2006): 89; Eli Berman and David A. Lake, Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), 3–4; Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Effectiveness of Security Force Assistance,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 1–2 (February 23, 2018): 95–99, source ; Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 505–6.
  66. This sort of switching or arms race is consistent with academic assumptions of how proxies or agents are likely to respond in patron-rich environments. Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham note that screening for the right agent is a “two-way process” and suggest that rebels or other potential proxies will choose the patron with the most resources to offer them, the best ideological fit, or that appears closest to their interests. Idean Salehyan, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and David E. Cunningham, “Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups,” International Organization 65, no. 4 (2011): 717, source ; Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 509; Byman, “Why Be a Pawn to a State? Proxy Wars From a Proxy’s Perspective.” For examples of local commanders’ reasons for switching sides or choosing one backer over another, see András Derzsi-Horváth, “Rabi’a,” Project on Local, Hybrid and Substate Actors in Iraq, Global Public Policy institute, August 4, 2017, source ; Gaston, “Hamdaniya District”; Gaston, “Local Forces, Local Control.” For broader discussion and cross-examples of such flux and fluidity in proxy dynamics across the Middle East, see Malley, “Why the Middle East Is More Combustible Than Ever”; Seyom Brown, “Purposes and Pitfalls of War by Proxy: A Systemic Analysis,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27, no. 2 (2016).
  67. Biddle, Macdonald, and Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Effectiveness of Security Force Assistance,” 103; Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 509.

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Post-2014: A Stew of Potential Proxies and Patrons

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U.S.-Iran Proxy Competition in Iraq