Abstract

ENDURING FAILURES: A BORDERLANDS HISTORY OF THE IRAQ WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH

by Terry Thomas Tait

This thesis places the Iraq War and its aftermath (2003-2014) within the framework of borderlands scholarship. The interdisciplinary approach used in this work makes new connections between borderlands history, particularly in the context of North America, and places it within the context of the modern Middle East. By expanding upon abstract notions of power in the frontier, this work explores the different perspectives, experiences, and goals of Iraq’s tribal community in al-Anbar Province, the U.S.-led Coalition, and al-Qaʿida in Iraq and its successor organizations to argue that these groups failed to fill the vacuum of authority that emerged in Iraq after 2003 with their own respective visions for the country’s future. This work utilizes Richard Whites concept of “the middle ground” to explore how these groups negotiated and competed with one another for hegemony, creating the political realities of post-2003 Iraq.

ENDURING FAILURES: A BORDERLANDS HISTORY OF THE IRAQ WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH

Thesis

Submitted to the

Faculty of Miami University

in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

by

Terry Thomas Tait

Miami University

Oxford, Ohio

2019

Advisor: Dr. Matthew Gordon

Reader: Dr. Nathan French

Reader: Dr. Amanda McVety

Reader: Dr. Andrew Offenburger

© 2019 Terry Thomas Tait

This Select thesis titled

ENDURING FAILURES: A BORDERLANDS HISTORY OF THE IRAQ WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH

by

Terry Thomas Tait

has been approved for publication by

College of Arts and Science

and

Department of History

______Dr. Matthew Gordon

______Dr. Nathan French

______Dr. Amanda McVety

______Dr. Andrew Offenburger

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements. ……………………………………………………………………….. iv

Introduction .……………………………………………………………………………….. 1

Chapter One: Cooperation, Coercion, and the Pursuit of Tribal Interests in al-Anbar…….. 15

Chapter Two: An Ideological Imposition: The U.S. in Iraq……………………………….. 44

Chapter Three: The Management of the Middle Ground: The Jihadist State Project in Iraq..……………………………………………………………………………...... 74

Conclusion.……………………………………………………………………………….... 105

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….. 109

iii

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my committee members who played a vital role in helping me produce this thesis: Matthew Gordon, Nathan French, Amanda McVety, and Andrew Offenburger. Throughout the process of researching and writing this work, they asked questions and encouraged me to think more critically about my own ideas and the materials that I was working with. I would also like to thank my graduate cohort, especially Adam Bruno, Allie Fair, Amanda Lawson, and Edward Strong, for aiding me through the writing process by reading several drafts and at times serving as a sound board for new ideas. The patience and attention to detail of all these individuals helped to bring a level of clarity and depth that otherwise would not have been possible.

iv

Introduction “Honorable Iraqis: your land has been completely liberated,” Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi declared on December 9, 2017. His speech was a declaration of victory over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which emerged as a unified military force only three years before, when it took over broad swaths of Iraqi territory.1 His words seemed absolute and final. However military operations in the country continued, especially in the western desert of al-Anbar Province. Nevertheless, Abadi seemed to be ushering in a new phase in Iraq’s history. But this was not the first time victory was falsely declared in Iraq. As recently as 2011, the U.S. President Barack Obama stated that “the tide of war is receding.”2 His words marked the final U.S. troops being withdrawn from an eight-year conflict that started with his predecessor, President George W. Bush, whose own “Mission Accomplished” gaffe came at the beginning of a protracted insurgency. Similarly, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi proclaimed the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq with himself as the group’s emir.3 The perpetual state of instability in Iraq makes each of these ‘victories’ appear to be superficial, if not outright falsehoods. But why are each of these victories followed by such contradicting failures? While every party in Iraq’s conflicts, including the country’s tribes, the U.S.-led Coalition, and al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI) made short term progress towards their goals, they each failed to make durable progress to achieve their respective aims. This thesis seeks to examine how these groups failed to accomplish their goals during the Iraq War and establish a dominant governing authority in the country after the removal of Saddam Hussein. The single consequence of these collective failures, I argue, is the emergence of a vacuum of authority, which would later contribute to the expansion of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014. By the phrase “vacuum of authority” I am referring to a political situation where there are multiple powers that claim to hold legitimate control over a single space, creating a struggle for hegemony. This idea is an extension of the concept of a vacuum of power, where there is no political authority in a given territory. This

1 Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Aboulenein, “Iraq Declares Final Victory Over Islamic State,” Reuters, December 9, 2017. 2 Matt Compton, “President Obama Has Ended The War in Iraq,” Obama White House, October 21, 2011, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/10/21/president-obama-has-ended-war-iraq. 3 Kyle Orton, “The Announcement of the Islamic State—in 2006,” Kyle Orton’s Blog, 18 March 2018, https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/the-announcement-of-the-islamic-state-in-2006/. 1

thesis poses that because there were several powers claiming to hold political power in Iraq, there was no singular political entity that legitimately controlled the country. I will focus primarily on the actions and rhetoric of the tribes of Iraq’s al-Anbar Province, the U.S.-led Coalition, and AQI and its successor organizations in order to understand their pursuit of larger goals in the country and the region. This thesis makes the case that the internal dynamics of each of these groups and their relationships with other actors in the country, or lack thereof, contributed to their successes and failures, ultimately preventing the establishment of a single dominant authority in the country. To make this argument, this project will connect the local context of Iraq, and particularly al-Anbar Province, to each individual group’s historical development. Because the existing scholarship on this conflict places a significant amount of attention on the other actors in the conflict, this project emphasizes the role of Iraq's tribal population. While this community has received greater attention in the past few years, there are still many questions that can be answered to clarify an important aspect of this conflict and its aftermath. This thesis attempts to clarify some aspects of the tribal role in the Iraq War, but due to the limitation of available resources there are many questions that remain. The inspiration for this project’s approach is Karl Jacoby’s Shadows at Dawn, which examines the perspectives of several groups in order to understand the history of violence in the American South West. His work traces four different narratives to explore the experiences of four distinct communities: Anglo Americans, Mexican Americans, Tohono O’odhams, and Apaches. Jacoby artfully presents these different historical narratives into one historical account by blending historical research and traditional storytelling.4 In that spirit, this thesis frames the Iraq War from the perspectives of three groups that were central to the conflict’s development, tracing each group’s respective experiences, and incorporating their narratives of and goals for the war. By looking at how each group described developments in Iraq—accurately or otherwise—this thesis will show how they understood the war and placed themselves within it. Additionally, this work adopts Richard White’s idea of “the middle ground,” as a space between cultures and political groups where new realities were created through the acts of cooperation and conflict between different parties. The discussion that follows demonstrates that during the

4 Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History (New York: Penguin Books, 2009). 2

transitional period of the Iraq War, several groups competed over political authority in the country, but failed to create a new, stable reality that satisfied all participants. One of the primary goals of this project is to present the narratives, goals, and internal conflicts of each of these groups—but especially of Iraq’s tribal community—within their respective historical contexts. By doing so, this project will expand our understanding of power during this conflict, and give voice to an often neglected community in American scholarship on the Iraq War. This work encourages the reader to reflect on the political and social implications of the Iraq War in the context of al-Anbar Province and more contemporary events following the war’s conclusion. Indeed, the consequences of the Iraq War are in many ways still unraveling as the consequences of armed conflict permeate the physical landscape and linger over many political and economic decisions. In the U.S., neoliberal politicians are once again considering long-term military involvement in foreign countries, making a discussion of this transitional period in Iraq’s history an imperative. By shedding light on the relationships that form between groups in conflict zones, where there is a vacuum of authority, we can understand how the war’s development was dependent upon the goals and actions of all its participants, giving agency to these various actors. This project attempts to broaden scholarly understandings of the Iraq War by incorporating ideas from borderlands scholars such as Karl Jacoby and Richard White, placing the conflict in conversation with other intellectual conversations outside of the Middle East. To do this I draw from the fields of anthropology, sociology, and history in the Middle East and elsewhere, particularly with regards to ideas of power, empire, narrative, and identity. I will use these concepts to frame a conversation on the tribes of al-Anbar as well as the other actors involved in the Iraq War. The following discussions will provide a necessary background for this work’s methodological approach, as well as necessary context on theories of tribalism and the history of tribal authority in Iraq before 2003. Borderlands Borderlands history has developed particularly in relation to the American West, and especially regarding the U.S.-Mexican border. The works of scholars like Herbert E. Bolton, who connected the history of the United States to larger hemispheric developments, and later David J. Weber, who expanded upon Bolton’s legacy by delving deeper into the Spanish borderlands of North America, created the foundations of this field of inquiry by illustrating the social and 3

political complexities of these geographic areas.5 However, scholars of various geographic regions have benefited from its application. In that same spirit this work will apply the methods of these scholars to a new context: 21st century Iraq. By emphasizing the ambiguity of power, local contingency, and issues of identity in post-invasion Iraq, this thesis contributes to a larger understanding of the war as well as its participants. While a large portion of borderlands studies in the U.S.-Mexico context have focused on the political border between the two countries, the application of this approach—specifically recent works in other fields—has taken a more thematic approach, placing greater emphasis on political and social topics. Because this work is primarily confined to Iraq, it will not examine the complexities at nation-state boundaries in great depth. Rather, this project will examine the shifting boundaries between areas controlled by different political actors and the dynamic relations between them. These borderlands constitute contested physical and political spaces where in the absence of a single central authority, there is an ambiguity of power as actors fought and negotiated with one another for control. Though it is tempting to think of borderlands as areas only near borders, this project rests on the idea that borderlands emerge from vacuums of authority, where no political or military power held the legitimacy necessary to control a physical or social terrain in its entirety. Political and geographic boundaries rarely block the movement or determine the identity of the populations that live within them, nor do they represent the true extent of state control. Jonathan Goodhand, a scholar of conflict and development studies, refers to a “classical definition” of borderlands as a region on the edge of state authority, but such limitations are not restricted to areas nearest to international boundaries.6 Rather, in this thesis, borderlands act as zones of defiance, where a state’s authority is resisted or contested. While such areas are not confined to border zones, Jackson writes that “if borders stage themselves as concrete

5 For a discussion of these two historians see José de Onís, “The Americas of Herbert E. Bolton,” The Americas 12, No. 2 (Oct., 1955); Steven W. Hackel, William B. Taylor, Amy Turner Bushnell, Cynthia Radding, Peter Onuf, Pekka Hämäläinen and Benjamin H. Johnson, “David Weber and the Borderlands Past, Present, Future: Conference on Latin American History/American Historical Association Annual Meeting Boston, Massachusetts January 8, 2011: Borderlands and Frontiers Studies Committee Panel Honoring David Weber,” Southern California Quarterly 93, No. 3 (Fall 2011). 6 Jonathan Goodhand, “War Peace and the Places in Between: Why Borderlands are Central,” in Whose Peace?: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding, eds. Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper, Mandy Turner (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 228. 4

delimitations, they also give rise to borderlands which work against their efforts.”7 Thus when placed within the nation-state model, a borderland is a zone of transgression, and for the state an area of insurrection or insecurity. But for individuals that oppose the state they function as areas of avoidance, or even resistance.8 Indeed, tribal shaykhs in al-Anbar managed extensive smuggling networks that connected the province to Syria and Jordan, fostering not only an unofficial market, but the movement of fighters between one country and the next. The transgression of international boundaries by tribal groups and others demonstrates how these actors experienced spacial barriers differently, often in relation to social or organizational boundaries. As a result, Iraq's national boundaries are not an adequate framework to understand the "borders" between these different groups. James C. Scott examines one of the largest areas of avoidance: Zomia, the mountainous region in Southeast Asia that has historically been beyond the reach of neighboring lowland states such as the Han Dynasty in China. He makes the case that Zomia is a “negative” region, one that exists in opposition to the culturally and linguistically homogeneous zones that surround it.9 In his account, he also refers to the region as a “shatter zone,” a place of refuge, where individuals who want to escape the worst excesses of the state, including taxation, corvee labor, war, etc. can flee to.10 The peoples of Zomia avoided these mechanisms of subjugation in order to rule themselves. A similar desire for autonomy and self-rule can be found among the tribes of al-Anbar, which maintained their own special customs and cultural expectations to govern and regulate the actions of members. Scott’s “negative” and “positive” dichotomy implies a flow of influence between these ungoverned hill communities and the valley-states, as refugees fled governed areas for ungoverned spaces and the valley states expanded their reach into the neighboring hills. In his own work on the internal borderlands of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jackson also refers to this idea of power flowing from one area to another by using the concept of potential difference, which relates to the amount of energy needed to move between two opposing points

7 Stephen Jackson, “Potential Difference: Internal Borderlands in Africa,” in Whose Peace?: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding, eds. Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper, Mandy Turner (New York: ,Palgrave Macmillan 2008), 264. 8 John Goodhand, “War, Peace and the Places in Between,” 234. 9 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 16. 10 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 7. 5

with different levels of energy. He clarifies that “while borders purport to exist in order to bring predictability and governability to the flows across them, paradoxically their very existence sets up a ‘potential difference’ which provides just the incentives to try to transgress them.”11 Similarly, in Zomia, power flows into non-governed areas, just as resistance to those same forms of authority flow towards government centers. Scott shows that these areas stigmatize the other as illegitimate based on their social and political differences, establishing a dichotomy of what was to be considered legitimate and illegitimate ways of living.12 During the Iraq War, the potential difference between two areas reflected not actual governance, but the perceived difference in legitimate authority and socio-political boundaries. In this framework the actors in Iraq entered the conflict in order to expand their influence, and create—what they viewed as— valid political projects. Yet the expansion of political power between spaces is not quite as simple as energy being pushed towards another point. Rather, it is a slow and impermanent process that involves a complex negotiation of authority between different powers. Richard White describes the Algonquin of the Great Lakes Region as negotiating a “middle ground” with European settlers. This joint Indian-White creation emerged through a process of accommodation as these groups produced a mode of mutually understood meanings and practices. During this process, different groups were forced to reimagine the other and their goals and interests, in what amounted to “creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings,” that enabled groups to frame their partners within their own visions for the future.13 Whether such imaginings were a result of willful ignorance or deliberate assumptions, the result was the creation of a new world that enabled them to communicate, cooperate, and confront one another. White writes that, “the real crisis and the final dissolution of this world came when Indians ceased to have the power to force whites onto the middle ground. Then the desire of whites to dictate the terms of accommodation could be given its head. As a consequence the middle ground eroded.”14 White’s conception of middle ground is crucial to this work’s examination of how different groups formed relationships throughout the conflict to promote their interests, and, for some, “dictate the terms” of a post-war world.

11 Stephen Jackson, “Potential Difference: Internal Borderlands in Africa,” 269-270. 12 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, xi-xiii. 13 Richard White, The Middle Ground (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), x. 14 Richard White, The Middle Ground (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xv. 6

In White’s work the erosion of the middle ground meant not only military dominance, but the re-creation of those removed from this liminal space as the other. James Joseph Buss, in his expansion of the conceptual framework of the middle ground, argues that the “clearing of the middle ground” was not confined to the physical removal of an indigenous group, but includes the creation of new narratives that can be used to control the cultural landscape.15 In the context of the Great Lakes region in North America, these narratives include American narratives of expansion, democracy, and progress as well as the myth of vanished Indians that were used control the cultural landscape. In his account of the Comanche Empire, Pekka Hämäläinen challenges the validity of such narratives by framing the Comanches as a powerful and expansive indigenous empire that “not only stalled, but eclipsed” its European contemporaries.16 By referring to the Comanche as the missing component in the study of New Spain’s failure to colonize North America, Hämäläinen addresses the way in which the Comanche were absent from previous scholarly accounts in the same way other native groups were removed or redefined by American narratives of the frontier.17 This framework establishes the Comanche as equals to Americans and Europeans, and forces the Comanche back onto a scholarly middle ground, countering the myths of ‘vanishing Indians’ and the ‘noble savage.’ This thesis will apply the concepts from scholars like White, Scott, Hämäläinen, and Buss to place the narrative of the tribes of al-Anbar on a more equal footing with other groups in the telling of the Iraq War than previous studies have allowed. This work will highlight that the participants in the Iraq War were unable to militarily or rhetorically remove their opposition, and employed narratives of victory and success that did not reflect their limited support among the Iraqi population or even their political partners. As a result, al-Anbar Province and the rest of Iraq remained a contested territory after the official conclusion of the Iraq War in 2011 as the country’s leading politicians failed to effectively remove their opposition—including the tribes, AQI and its successor organizations, and others within the Iraqi government. Throughout this thesis, I refer to White’s term of a middle ground and Buss’s expansion on the concept in order to explain developments in Iraq over the course of the conflict.

15 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 5. 16 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 2. 17 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 11. 7

In order to better understand al-Anbar’s tribal population, and its ability to operate in the liminal space between more powerful powers, a general discussion of tribalism and its history in Iraq is in order. While there are some risks to applying a general anthropological understanding of tribalism to a specific context, the tribes of Iraq are among the least researched in the Middle East and North Africa, due to the restrictive nature of the country’s authoritarian government in the late 20th century. Because of the limited number of studies conducted in the country, this work will draw from critical works on tribalism throughout the Middle East and North Africa region and then examine the existing works on tribalism in Iraq. Tribalism In Iraq, and much of the Middle East, it was not until the mid-19th century that non- governed areas came under the influence of modern states.18 It was in these contested spaces that Arab tribes emerged and flourished with a common tribal culture that emphasized autonomy, equality, and honor. These kinship groups served as a basis for social and political organization with a shared identity that connected their members. Tribes are malleable cultural bodies that often adapt to preserve their social identity and promote their interests. As Dale Eickelman points out, the single English word for tribe cannot possibly represent the variety of meanings such a term has in different regions and historical moments.19 Despite this linguistic shortcoming, the limited scholarship on tribes in modern Iraq necessitates that a broader framework for Arab tribes be established to contextualize the conversation that follows. In the most basic sense, a tribe is an extended kinship network that asserts a common lineage, which can be divided into several segments, and then broken down further into smaller units of familial organization. Solidarity at these “lower” levels is stronger than at “higher,” more theoretical level of a tribe’s structure because the further these segments are broken down, the more immediate the other members in that group. The wider the circle of inclusion, the more diffuse loyalties become because relationships based on immediate proximity are more salient than those between kinsmen who never meet.20 Thus tribes, as a whole, are not unified entities.

18 Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, “Introduction: Tribes and the Complexities of State Formation in the Middle East,” in Tribes and State formation in the Middle East, eds. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 2. 19 Dale Eickelman, The Middle East, 126. 20 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983), 6; E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of The Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of A Nilotic People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940), 149. 8

Emrys L. Peters writes that among the bedouin tribes of Cyrenaica, tertiary segments, which he defines as a camps of 200-700 people, were considered the core of a tribe. He describes this unit as “one body” and adds that “an offense against one of its members is held to be an offense against all.”21 While membership in this tertiary group creates expectations for an individual’s conduct during times of conflict, Dale Eickelman writes that as a principle of segmentation there is no requirement to fixed lines of conduct and responsibility, particularly at levels of loyalty beyond the tertiary segment.22 This means that beyond a certain level, the group’s solidarity between segments becomes as imagined as their claims of shared kinship. While most scholars agree with the basic principles of Ibn Khaldun’s group mentality and Emile Durkheim's mechanical solidarity,23 recent scholarship has complicated these ideas. Paul Dresch notes that segmentary structures do not necessitate absolute cohesion, and he makes a distinction between those who carry a tribal name and “the (transient) groups of men who act in those names and are acted on.”24 Following this logic there is a distinction between what members say and do, and that membership does not equate to acts of cohesion. In Evans- Pritchard’s classic study of the Nuer peoples in present day South Sudan, he writes that such action is entirely based on context. “They are best stated as tendencies to conform to certain values in certain situations, and the value is determined by the structural relationships of the persons who compose the situation.”25 The most visible form of tribal action occurs during feuds and disputes, when a group’s honor is most threatened. In such situations members are expected to show their solidarity with the group by taking action or rhetorically supporting their kinsmen. While expectations for an individual’s actions are non-binding, Eickelman notes that if someone acts in opposition to their tribe’s expectations, they risk being separated from the group as a whole.26 During a fued an individual’s interests are bounded with those of the group, because tribal members are constantly engaging in acts of public performance that influence their

21 Emrys L. Peters, “Some Structural Aspects of the Feud Among the Camel-Herding Bedouin of Cyrenaica,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 37, no. 3 (1967), 263. 22 Dale Eickelman, The Middle East, 132. 23 Dale Eickelman, “Tribal Belonging Today,” Omran 5, no. 19 (Winter 2017), 58. 24 Paul Dresch, “The Significance of the Course Events Take in Segmentary Systems,” American Ethnologist 13, no. 2 (1986), 314. 25 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, 137. 26 Dale Eickelman, The Middle East, 134-135. 9

reputations within the community.27 Thus, an individual’s interests are intertwined with those of the tribe as a whole, as acting against the collective would harm an individual’s social standing. These concepts of solidarity and social expectations are critical to understanding the motivations of tribal leaders during the Iraq War. In response to the new powers that threatened tribal authority, shaykhs mobilized their followers to protect the collective body from harm, and utilized their patronage networks to enhance their reputations and maintain the general interests of the tribes. However, by taking actions that were portrayed by others as being against the tribe’s interests, these leaders lost credibility within their tribes. As will be shown in the chapters that follow, shaykhs in al-Anbar Province often had difficulty maintaining the support of their kinsmen as they pursued different political partnerships to bolster their positions in the country. With this general foundation it is necessary to provide some specific context to the history of tribes in Iraq. Tribal History in Modern Iraq In the early 20th century, the arrival of British officials in Iraq changed the political landscape in Iraq for the territory’s tribes. With the onset of the First World War and a decline in Ottoman influence, a competing web of alliances emerged as the tribes played these powers off one another to expand their influence and pursue internal rivalries. Thair Karim, an economic historian, writes that “it is difficult to escape the conclusion that maximum personal advantages sought by various [shaykhs] were the ultimate consideration that determined the actual positions taken by various tribes.”28 In this period tribal leaders took a larger role in deciding the future of their tribes, and they developed, what Paul Lancaster refers to as, “foreign relations role with Ottoman authorities, other tribes, and other foreign entities,”29 including the British and later the Iraqi Monarchy, to pursue their political and economic interests in the country.30

27 William Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 74. 28 Thair Karim, “Tribalism and Nationalism: Tribal Political Culture and Behaviour in Iraq, 1914-20,” in Tribes and Power: Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Middle East, eds. Faleh A. Jabar and Hosham Dawod (London: Saqi Books, 2003), 288. 29 Paul Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today, 130 30 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba‘thists, and Free Officers (Princeton: Princeton University Press:1978), 90. 10

Despite the ability of tribal leaders to assert their authority during the Hashemite Monarchy (1921-1958), which failed to resolve the country’s social and economic problems,31 the tribes were increasingly isolated from state structures of power as military and urban elites came to dominate Iraq’s political debates in the late 1930s. If Hanna Batatu, an Iraqi sociologist, is correct, then the authority of tribes should have disappeared over the course of the mid-20th century,32 but the tribes in al-Anbar were able maintain their social ties and reorient their economic base by utilizing their geographic location along the Syrian and Jordanian border and by reasserting their shared kinship with other tribal groups. The tribes in Iraq’s western province of al-Anbar were uniquely suited to take part in an unofficial economy of cross border smuggling. “Such ‘smuggling’ [was] long‐standing and has been vital to the welfare and prosperity of the populations of western Iraq and eastern Syria since the two states were formed. Although the commodities have shifted over time, the basic modalities of such commerce continue: syndicates of trader/investors in either Iraq or Syria, usually in cities, purchase locally inexpensive goods that can be sold at a profit across the border if duties are not paid.” The limited reach of the state into this peripheral region further encouraged this practice, providing a source of revenue that promoted tribal autonomy from Baghdad. The practice of smuggling preserved the patron-client relationship between shaykhs and their followers, and promoted a degree of autonomy from the capital while antagonistic tribal policies in Baghdad pushed them further from positions of power.33 Over the course of the 20th century Iraq’s various regimes would attempt to dominate the country’s tribal population, and integrate it into other areas of society. But such policies changed with the rise of Saddam Hussein as the country’s president in 1979. Saddam and the Baʿth Party extended greater control over all aspects of Iraqi life, including religion, politics, and trade. But the Baʿth regime distinguished itself from its predecessors by incorporating existing social

31 Bassam Tibi, “The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East,” in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, eds. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 140. 32 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, 88. 33 “Such ‘smuggling’ is long‐standing and has been vital to the welfare and prosperity of the populations of western Iraq and eastern Syria since the two states were formed. Although the commodities have shifted over time, the basic modalities of such commerce continue: syndicates of trader/investors in either Iraq or Syria, usually in cities, purchase locally inexpensive goods that can be sold at a profit across the border if duties are not paid.” Anonymous, “Smuggling, Syria, and Spending,” in Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout: al-Qaʿida’s Road in and out of Iraq, ed. Brian H. Fishman (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2008), 86. 11

institutions into the ruling party. Saddam not only revitalized the image of tribalism as a valued aspect of the country’s culture and history, but co-opted tribal leaders to fulfill state functions, including cross border trade.34 In this relationship between the state and tribes, which Faleh A. Jabar refers to as “etatist tribalism,” the state exerted itself over different forms of tribalism, notably social and cultural tribalism, “in its capacity as a regulative agency” and as the sole authority within the country.35 But when Iraq’s political elite came under significant economic and political pressure from internal opposition and economic sanctions, smuggling kept goods flowing into the capital. International sanctions brought a boom in unofficial cross border trade between western Iraq and eastern Syria, causing tribal patronage networks to expand,36 while the regime struggled to maintain its control over the country.37 And so in the years that preceded the U.S. invasion in 2003, the tribes of al-Anbar Province developed a stronger position in the country vis-á-vis its relationship with the regime. But as the Baʿthist regime was removed from power, a vacuum of authority was created by the various actors that emerges to claim control over the country. While Iraqis were glad Saddam’s 24 year rule ended, many, particularly in al-Anbar Province, were not willing to accept an occupation or the imposition of a foreign political project in the country. Over the course of the conflict, as these various actors clashed and cooperated, a new “Iraqi” middle ground took shape. This new world constantly evolved as relationships between the war’s participants changed over time, but rarely did this space reflect their respective visions for Iraq’s future. Rather, these groups were forced to accommodate others in defining the conditions of a post-Saddam Iraq. The resulting reality did not reflect the vision of any individual group, but was intrinsically influenced by the actions of all involved. Structure

34 Eric Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 173-174; In an interview the then heir apparent to the paramount shaykh of the Dulaimi Tribal Confederation, Ali Hatim stated “Before Saddam, we knew Ali Sulayman and two more [shaykhs], and that was it [referring to his lineage]. During Saddam, we had 460 [shaykhs],” indicating that the regime undermined traditional leaders by creating his own cadre of loyal shaykhs. Sheikh Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 107. 35 Faleh Abdul-Jabar, “Sheikhs and Ideologues: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Tribes under Patrimonial Totalitarianism in Iraq, 1968-1998,” in Tribes and Power: Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Middle East, eds. Faleh A. Jabar and Hosham Dawod (London: Saqi Books, 2003), 71. 36 Anonymous, “Smuggling, Syria, and Spending,” 87. 37 Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States, 180; Faleh Abdul-Jabar, “Sheikhs and Ideologues,” 89-90. 12

This thesis consists of three chapters, the first of which examines the experience of al- Anbar’s tribes following the U.S. invasion in 2003 to the provincial elections in 2009. I look at the role of tribal culture and politics in the conflict as shaykhs competed for authority and formed partnerships with external powers. Divisions within tribal groups are a key topic: different tribal leaders cooperated with AQI or the U.S.-led Coalition to preserve their own interests. Although many tribal leaders unified to confront AQI, divisions returned once this external enemy was eliminated, leaving tribes to continue competing for resources and influence on what I will refer to from this point as “the middle ground.” This chapter is based on a series of interviews conducted by the United States Marine Corps in 2009. The interviewees include religious leaders, shaykhs, and military officials from Saddam’s regime and the new government. The individuals in question were chosen because of their prominent roles in working with the Coalition, and particularly in the movement known as the Anbar Awakening (2006-2009). For this reason, these materials privilege a pro-U.S. perspective. However, there are a broad range of Iraqi opinions not reflected in this collection, including the anti-U.S. sentiment of some of the interviewees themselves, and I incorporate such perspectives when possible by referring to contemporary interviews and journalistic accounts. The second chapter looks at the Coalition’s mission in Iraq and particularly the White House’s neo-conservative mission to create a democratic ally in the region. While there was a special emphasis placed on the establishment of free markets and democratic institutions, the U.S. military and its diplomatic counterparts struggled to conjure strategies to achieve these goals. I will argue that the Coalition failed to establish the necessary institutions for a stable self- sustaining Iraq and the communal trust needed to support this project. The chapter begins with the development of major U.S. interest in Iraq in 1990 during the Gulf War and concludes with the start of troop withdrawals in 2011, and is based on a similar collection of interviews compiled by the Marine Corps along with several other administration documents and influential op-eds. The collection of interviews documenting the war’s “American Perspectives” was published contemporaneously with the other collection of “Iraqi Perspectives,” and is comprised primarily of statements by Generals and other high-ranking officers who were influential in the U.S. counterinsurgency effort. The publication presents a top-down pro-U.S. and pro-Pentagon perspective that differs drastically from those of enlisted soldiers and officials in the White House or the State Department. The chapter draws upon the accounts of these other U.S. 13

participants in the war when possible, but the dominant perspective of staff officers provides a valuable strategy-driven account of the war that suits the purpose of this work. The third chapter examines the development of AQI and its successor organizations, starting with its founder’s entrance into the jihadist movement until 2014, when the group established its political control over Fallujah. The goal is to show how this organization adjusted its strategy in Iraq to compensate for its failures in the country, particularly regarding its use of violence and media outreach. These factors had a significant effect on the group’s relationship with other jihadist groups and tribal leaders as well as the al-Qaʿida leadership outside of Iraq. This section will rely primarily on letters sent between jihadist leaders, speeches, and other jihadist publications such as magazines and books. By examining the internal discourses of the organization, this chapter will be able to examine the group’s goals and illustrate how it was able to adjust its strategy and reclaim a position of power in 2014. Certainly, Iraq and its neighbors are still feeling the effects of the Iraq War in a number of ways, but this work will present a new framework through which we can understand local developments in Iraq as the product of longer-term narratives, and their larger implications in the region and globally. By applying the concepts of several borderlands scholars to post-2003 Iraq, including Richard White’s idea of the middle ground, Pekka Hämäläinen’s use of reversed colonialism, and James Scott’s discussion of a culture of resistance, this thesis connects two bodies of literature, expanding our understanding of these events and demonstrating the utility of an interdisciplinary approach. As the history of this conflict is starting to be written, and new sources are uncovered, this work provides a framework that connects each group’s experience to show how their collective actions and rhetoric contributed to a failure to fill the vacuum of authority with a single governing body in the country.

14

Chapter One Cooperation, Coercion, and the Pursuit of Tribal Interests in al-Anbar On the night of November 9, 2005, several Iraqis under the instruction of Abu Musʿab al- Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI), carried out a coordinated attack on three hotels in Amman, Jordan: the Radisson SAS, the Grand Hyatt, and the Days Inn, killing 60 people and wounding over 100.38 These attacks simultaneously revealed the tentativeness of Jordan’s security and the effectiveness of Zarqawi’s organization in attracting Iraqi support to its cause. The only bomber who survived to be detained by Jordanian officials was a Ramadi woman by the name of Sajida al-Rishawi. She joined the group after two of her brothers and a brother-in- law were killed by coalition forces.39 Sajida’s relatives joined AQI during the early stages of the occupation in order to resist the U.S. forces in Iraq. After their deaths Sajida vowed to avenge their deaths by killing U.S. soldiers, but she was exploited by her AQI recruiters to kill Jordanian civilians instead. It is likely that Sajida did not know her intended target, and that AQI’s leadership exploited her desire for retribution as a tool to conduct an attack that even some within the jihadist movement found reprehensible.40 Tribal customs heavily influenced the actions of individuals in al-Anbar province during the Iraq War. As in the case of Sajida, the mechanisms of feud and retribution as well as notions of group solidarity were invoked throughout the conflict to unify tribal members against the emerging threats to a group’s political and economic interests. Often the most obvious threats were those external to the tribal structure such as the U.S. or AQI, but just as often shaykhs were competing with other factions within their tribes and vying for authority with other shaykhs in the province. These divisions produced divergent ideas of how the tribal community should preserve its autonomy from foreign powers, while local leaders tried to expand their influence. Although these shaykhs did resist the U.S. and AQI, their true goals in the conflict related to maintaining and building their own power on a local and provincial level. This chapter argues that tribal shaykhs and their followers were vital elements in the history of the Iraq War and its aftermath. While some scholarship has argued that Iraqi tribal society oscillated between support for the programs of AQI and the U.S., in fact it typically

38 Hassan M. Fattah and Michael Slackman, “Three Hotels Bombed in Jordan; At least 57 Died,” New York Times, November 10, 2005. 39 Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Doubleday, 2015), 195. 40 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 197-198. 15

pursued its own political and economic interests, and its members made their own decisions independent of either power. In the wake of the U.S. invasion, al-Anbar’s tribes were as much an obstacle to the interests of other powers as these powers were to tribal leaders. Without the support of tribal forces, neither the U.S. nor AQI would have achieved the same level of success in the country. These foreign groups needed to partner with tribal leaders in shaping a new political reality in the country. By examining the actions of these figures we can understand the world these shaykhs wanted to create and how they contributed to developments on the shared space of the middle ground.41 This chapter illustrates the power struggles within al-Anbar’s tribal community as well as between this population and foreign groups by drawing on the concepts put forward by a variety of borderlands scholars, most notably Richard White’s idea of the middle ground, Pekka Hämäläinen’s use of reversed colonialism, and James Scott’s discussion of a culture of resistance. With this framework I illustrate how tribal leaders promoted their interests and engaged with others in the province. Although the term tribe can be problematic, I will be using the term because this is an instance when tribal identity was invoked and community leaders attempted to mobilize their fellow kinsmen around it. Indeed, the goal of this chapter is not to portray tribes as a coherent structural entity, but to show the vast complexities within this community and the agency that shaykhs and tribesmen exercised throughout this period as they joined resistance groups and formed political partnerships. I use the United States Marine Corps’ collection of interviews, “Iraqi Perspectives,” as the basis for my analysis in this section, which includes several interviews with prominent shaykhs from al-Anbar province who participated in the Iraq War as well as members of the former regime and members of the new government. This chapter also incorporates a number of contemporary news sources from Arab and Western media outlets. The work of journalists who interviewed individuals in the province during the conflict has also been a critical source of information. My chief concern is with the motivations and rhetoric of tribal leaders, but I will also address those of American officials and al-Qaʿida leaders in order to provide necessary context.

41 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: -Cambridge University Press, 1991), x. 16

The first portion of this chapter discusses the initial stages of the occupation and the start of the resistance until 2004 and the First Battle of Fallujah. I then look at the tribal partnerships that formed with AQI as the group gained power in the country. This will be followed by a discussion of the transition away from cooperating with AQI to working with the Coalition, the stages of that relationship, and the divisions that it caused within the tribal community. The chapter will end by examining the state of tribal politics when U.S. troops begin withdrawing from the country, and the tribal involvement in national politics. The Resistance (2003-04) Three weeks after the initial invasion, the international coalition conquered the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and was greeted by cheering Iraqis celebrating the end of Saddam’s rule, albeit not many. Although the dictator had not been captured, and would not be until December, the coming of the U.S. forces and their coalition partners ensured the welcome end of his brutal regime. However, the new rulers of Baghdad came prepared to fight, not to govern. Soon after the fall of Saddam it became clear that there was no plan to administer the country nor conduct a transition of power.42 Without a security or police force in the city a state of lawlessness emerged as people took to the streets looting, which Donald Rumsfeld dismissed by saying that “stuff happens… it’s untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."43 Yet for however much “stuff” happened in Baghdad, the looting of valuable antiquities, weapons, and other goods was not simply a population letting off steam, but a failure of the new occupying power to assert its governing authority. Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration misinterpreted the actions of this “liberated” population as taking their first steps from authoritarianism to democratization. The assumption that Iraqis supported the U.S.’s political program influenced many of the decisions that the Coalition made in the country, but this distorted understanding of local Iraqis and their goals led to clashes and new political realities as these two worlds converged on the middle ground.44 The encounter between the Coalition and the Anbari population was not as immediate or abrupt as in Baghdad. Because coalition forces focused their attention on the capital, an air of

42 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 33. 43 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, 136. 44 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 17

relative calm remained in the province as remnants of the old security forces continued to function. However, these security forces later abandoned their posts to take control of an insurgent effort with the help of some foreign Arabs to resist U.S. forces that were extending their reach from Baghdad.45 As the Baʿth regime stepped away from administering the province, a small group of tribal shaykhs stepped onto the political stage and negotiated an informal peace treaty with the coalition, which permitted Coalition Forces to enter the province so long as they did so peacefully. Under this agreement, “A government was established in al-Anbar with the support of the American forces. Basic services, and everything else [at this time], were excellent.”46 At this early stage, these few shaykhs accommodated the U.S.’s political program to create a new political reality in the country. While these individuals presented themselves to the U.S. as new “structures of stability” that could assume control of the province, other Iraqis saw them as stooges for an occupying force and did not agree with the presence of the coalition in al- Anbar nor the actions taken by these tribal leaders.47 The limited benefits that the community was receiving from this political arrangement led many to embrace a culture of resistance as a way of maintaining their autonomy from the occupational forces.48 On April 28, about 200 demonstrators in Fallujah took to the streets to peacefully protest the presence of U.S. forces in the city. According to Iraqi accounts of the event, which would later be referred to as the Fallujah massacre, U.S. troops began firing upon the crowds unprovoked, killing 15 and injuring another 65.49 In a 2009 interview, Thamer Ibrahim Tahir al- Assafi, a religious cleric from Ramadi and a member of the prestigious Albu Assaf tribe, said that, “the American forces did not respect the people who were demonstrating. They dealt with them rather violently. The people’s reaction was to pelt the Americans with rocks and tomatoes… They provoked the citizens. That was the first thing that started hatred.” Thamer explains that after these clashes animosity towards the Americans rose to new levels because, “we are a tribal people, and in our tradition, we know revenge. If someone gets killed from your

45 Aifan Sadun al-Issawi, “Interview 6,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 86. 46 Ahmad Bezia Fteikhan al-Rishawi, “Interview 3,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 45. 47 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 114. 48 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 20. 49 “The People of Fallujah Publicize Their Killing and Threaten The Americans,” Al-Jazeera Arabic, April 29, 2003. 18

family, you have to kill the killer, or at least a relative of his.”50 The callous treatment of the demonstrators showed not only the people of al-Anbar, but all of Iraq, that the U.S. “couldn’t care less what happened to Iraqis,” and that they had a natural right to resist this invading force.51 In the absence of a national polity that the Iraqi population considered legitimate and that could implement the rule of law, the Anbari population turned to tribal custom as a means to provide justice for victims of violence. For those seeking vengeance for violent acts against the population, entering into a feud with the offending party was the clearest path to achieving retribution.52 As Emrys Peters observes among the tribes of Northeastern Libya, “the feud has no beginning, and it has no end,” and each successive killing ensures that hostile relationships will endure.53 Thus once a feud is initiated it is difficult to end the hostilities between the involved parties. However, a feud functions as a form of relationship that connects two lineages together through a system of debt, whether that be a blood debt or a financial one. This system of debt serves as a deterrent from indefinite conflict, and as E.E. Evans-Pritchard writes, “fear of incurring a blood-feud is, in fact, the most important legal sanction within a tribe and the main guarantee of an individual’s life and property.”54 While such sanctions limit hostilities among tribal members, the Coalition was not of the tribal system and did not abide by by its customs. Thus many felt compelled to respond to the humiliating treatment of Iraqis at U.S. checkpoints, arbitrary detentions, and extensive unemployment directly caused by the CPA’s orders of de- Baʿthification and disbanding the Iraqi Army.55 Indeed tribal feuds have causes beyond murder

50 Thamer Ibrahim Tahir Al-Assafi and Abdullah Jallal Mukhif al-Faraji, “Interview 2,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 33. 51 Thamer Ibrahim Tahir Al-Assafi and Abdullah Jallal Mukhif al-Faraji, “Interview 2,” 34. 52 Emrys Peters writes that “ultimately, feud is a violent form of hostility between corporations which has its source in the competition for proprietary rights in land and water. This competition makes it necessary for groups to combine to prevent the encroachment of others in similar combinations and also to expand their resources whenever the opportunity arises.” Naturally, this competition for resources changes with context, and is not necessarily restricted to land and water, but can also be applied to control of smuggling routes or government positions. Emrys L. Peters, “Some Structural Aspects of the Feud Among the Camel-Herding Bedouin of Cyrenaica,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 37, no. 3 (1967), 279. 53 Emrys L. Peters, “Some Structural Aspects of the Feud Among the Camel-Herding Bedouin of Cyrenaica,” 268- 269. 54 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of The Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1940), 150. 55 De-Baʿthification and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army were enacted in May 2003 by the CPA’s order no. 1 and order no. 2, respectively. 19

alone. Any threat to a group’s honor or livelihood could initiate hostilities, and the Coalition was threatening not only Iraqi lives, but tribal culture and authority. The rhetoric of the feud and the direct experience that most had with the U.S. coalition’s actions helped tribal shaykhs to mobilize their members by invoking tribal solidarity (ʿasabiyya) and reminding their members of their responsibility to defend the community against the threat that the Coalition posed to their ability to influence developments on the middle ground. In anticipation of future conflict the people of al-Anbar started arming themselves by looting the Iraqi Army’s armories, which were left unguarded, and formed militias to resist the Coalition and protect their communities.56 Additionally, former soldiers of the Iraqi Army were sent home with their weapons, providing the resistance with equipment as well as combat experience. But the most significant impact of the Fallujah Massacre was that it made the city a symbol of resistance for fighters throughout Iraq and from abroad, attracting more radical groups to the province. The permeation of these other groups enabled al-Anbar’s tribes to form a partnerships to offset the U.S.’s dominance, forcing the Coalition to the middle ground and to accommodate the tribal community’s needs and political goals. Indeed, local leaders did not immediately decide to oppose the Coalition, but refused to be dominated by the U.S.’s military might nor marginalized by its political program. Shaykh Aifan of Fallujah said that “The Americans had no experience with our culture… [The British] had ways of communicating with the [shaykhs] and the people. But the Americans, when they got inside Fallujah, they started to arrest people. They arrested [shaykhs].”57 Shaykh Aifan’s comments indicate that, unlike the British, the U.S.’s forceful behavior and limited cooperation led the local community to engage in acts of resistance to the U.S.’s dominance in Iraq. Despite the proliferation of weapons and the growing tensions between Iraqis and the Coalition, “the tribal leaders were very careful to ensure that they kept the province secure and stable and protected the people,” according to Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party and the future governor of al-Anbar.58 Mamoun added that within Fallujah there were both people attempting to rebuild the province and those who were trying to destroy

56 In an interview Sheikh Aifan was quoted saying that “people started going into the [Iraqi] bases and taking weapons because they were not secure.” Aifan Sadun al-Issawi, “Interview 6,” 86. 57 Aifan Sadun al-Issawi, “Interview 6,” 86-87 58 Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani, “Interview 10,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 152. 20

it. In both groups, tribal shaykhs were taking leading roles and asserting their authority. While Governor Mamoun looks more favorably upon those who were “securing the province” by cooperating with U.S. forces, a major division already emerged in al-Anbar as to whether the tribes should cooperate with or confront the Coalition. In Fallujah, the anti-coalition forces took the upper hand when the U.S. military withdrew to the outskirts of the city following the April 28 demonstrations. According to one of the shaykhs who attempted to work with the coalition, Shaykh Ahmad Albu Rishawi, a businessman from the Albu Risha, “some people started inciting people to fight the Americans. They described those among us who cooperated with the Americans as stooges, and they gained a lot of popularity. They marshalled the people against us.”59 While it is unclear who comprised the anti-coalition group, they appear to have been growing in influence at this time, and were effectively mobilizing the population against the Coalition. Carter Malkasian, a journalist who was embedded with U.S. military forces during the Iraq War, wrote that shaykhs were among the most prominent resistance leaders.60 His first-hand account confirms that tribal leaders reasserted their authority over the Anbari community after the fall of the regime, and were competing amongst themselves for authority over a divided community. This divergence indicates that there was no single way to “rebuild the province,” but the growing support for these anti-coalition shaykhs shows that many felt threatened by the U.S.’s actions in the country, creating the necessary conditions for a confrontation between this segment of the population and the Coalition on the middle ground. Throughout 2003 and early 2004, militias were forming in order to oppose the Coalition and take control of their territory and its future. As the occupation dragged on, the resistance became increasingly organized. Following the April demonstrations Fallujah was firmly under the control of the local resistance, and groups were able to execute their own patrols and plant improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.s) to hamper the movement of U.S. forces. In a demonstration of local autonomy, shaykhs that opposed the Coalition placed consistent pressure on U.S. forces to keep them at an arm’s length from the city and its population. On February 13, in one of the largest attacks since the fall of the regime, about 25 armed men attacked Fallujah’s main police station and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps fort nearby. The attack killed 23 Iraqi

59 Ahmad Bezia Fteikhan al-Rishawi, “Interview 3,” 45. 60 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 30. 21

officers who were cooperating with the U.S. and freed dozens of prisoners. Perhaps even more striking, was that an assassination attempt on U.S. Army General John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. Central Command, occurred two days earlier at the same compound.61 These examples illustrate the strength of the resistance and their commitment to obtaining a greater voice in the country. By fighting the Coalition this resistance movement was rejecting U.S. dominance and forcing it to recognize local tribal power as sovereign and equal. The U.S. could not dictate to nor ignore this population, and as a result the Coalition needed to partner with these local leaders to create a reality that coincided with its vision for the country. These individuals sought not only to cooperate with the Coalition, but to ensure that future political and economic developments were beneficial to their interests, effectively excluding their rivals from participating in the process of creation that was taking place on the middle ground. But instead of meeting with the entire tribal community on the middle ground in this process of creation, the Coalition found local partners who were willing to act as “a fulcrum for indirect rule, a negotiating partner, and someone who might be held responsible… if there was trouble.”62 As the Coalition selectively engaged with local leaders, it ignored other competing voices of authority at the local level, who held different visions for Iraq's future, limiting their influence on the emerging middle ground in al-Anbar. The tensions among tribal leaders and between the Coalition and the resistance continued to escalate in 2004, culminating in the Battle of Fallujah in April. The perceived image of the U.S. as a hostile power that murdered and assaulted members of al-Anbar’s tribes created an environment that fostered mistrust and deep animosity between the two. The coalition’s actions attracted a greater contingent of fighters to Fallujah from elsewhere in Iraq and abroad to resist the U.S.’s aggression and prevent it from advancing its political project. While these foreign fighters enabled the resistance to challenge the Coalition, they did so by bringing a new set of goals for Iraq’s future to the middle ground. The participation of this additional external element altered the trajectory of the conflict by changing the resistance’s perceived goals and methods, exacerbating existing divisions within the tribal community and limiting the influence of tribal leaders in the country. The convergence of these groups in al-Anbar Province created a unique

61 Patrick Graham, “23 Killed as Iraqi Rebels Overrun Police Station,” The Guardian, Feb. 14, 2004. 62 Scott describes this as a part of a colonial state’s “hill chief fetish” and desire to engage with authority figures rather than egalitarian societies. He adds that when such figures could not be found the state would create one of their own. James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 113-114. 22

set of conditions for conditions in the region to be negotiated through conflict and cooperation on the middle ground, as these groups jostled the ability to define the future of the province and the country. A New Partnership and New Divisions (2004-2005) Many foreign fighters entered the country to fight with al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI) under the leadership of Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, who arrived in Iraq the year before the U.S. invasion. In that time the Jordanian established an extensive network of contacts and followers to assist in laying the groundwork for an Islamic state in the wake of the impending invasion.63 This jihadist group called on all Muslims to reject all un-Islamic rulers, who did not adhere to its own religious interpretations. Consequently, Zarqawi’s organization claimed to hold the greatest degree of political legitimacy in Iraq because of its religious foundations, and sought to implement its own political program in the country by asserting its dominance over the province.64 While Zarqawi fully intended to create a new reality in Iraq, he did not intend to do so by compromising his vision for Iraq in the long-term. Rather, the group tried to “dictate the terms of accomodation,” forcing the local community to accept a set of goals and practices that were framed by jihadist thought as their own, limiting a tribal influence on Zarqawi’s vision for Iraq’s future.65 By capitalizing on animosity towards the U.S.-led Coalition, AQI coerced its partners and exacerbated the divisions within the tribal community to promote its dominance. For many fighters from across the Arab World, Zarqawi’s organization provided an opportunity for a new generation to take part in the global jihadist movement. These foreigners comprised the largest portion of AQI’s mid-level leadership, and were in charge of coordinating local and regional operations within a given province. However, it was not the demographic makeup of AQI that caused Iraqis to distinguish themselves from it. Because of the group’s often violent intimidation tactics, Iraqis referred to its members as terrorists (irhabīn). Portions of the Iraqi resistance were hesitant to kill civilians or conduct suicide attacks that were designed to inflict maximum casualties. Such approaches seemed counterproductive as they harmed Iraqis the most. Nevertheless AQI attracted a significant following in the Sunni areas of Iraq, and found

63 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 86-87. 64 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 61-62. 65 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x, xv 23

the resistance movement willing to coordinate because of the organization appealed to a sense of marginalization and brought with it access to resources from abroad. The resistance movement accepted AQI as a joint partner in resisting the Coalition, and overlooked its more radical views in order to combat the Coalition and achieve its goal of greater local authority. By cooperating with AQI on the middle ground, local leaders allowed the group to influence the resistance with an ideology that, according to Governor Mamoun, “misled the people” and “created an internal struggle” in the province.66 With the assistance of established imams in Fallujah, AQI created a support base in the city before the battle with the coalition, particularly among individuals of lesser standing within the community. This lower stratum was a prime target for Zarqawi’s recruiting effort, as it often reflected his own tribal and criminal background. With little to no education and few employment opportunities, they used Zarqawi’s ideology to obtain a level of social mobility that their environment did not normally permit. Thus by accepting AQI as a viable partner, the tribal leaders of the resistance welcomed another obstacle to increasing their influence in the country. For those who opposed AQI, however, the group’s Iraqi partners were not legitimate members of their communities. Major General Tariq Yusif Mohammad al-Thiyabi, a former Baʿthist officer and the future Provincial Director of Police for al-Anbar, stated that, The lowlife elements, the criminals, the basest of the base, were the only ones working with these terrorist organizations… Society did not respect this person to begin with, because they were dirty, and they were lowlifes.67

While it is undeniable that the many actions of AQI and its membership were criminal, it appears as though Tariq and others dismissed the validity of this demographic’s choice to join and work with this group instead of acting within other aspects of the resistance. Such comments point to a tension of legitimacy in the province and a need to discredit AQI and its supporters as an alternative to tribal authority. While leaders like Tariq were threatened by AQI's reach in tribal society, a general of the old regime points out that AQI “took all the kids and the people who lived in poverty or had low social standing, and they provided them with extraordinary

66 Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani, “Interview 10,” 152. 67 Tariq Yusif Mohammad al-Thiyabi, “Interview 12,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 183. 24

support.”68 The absence of support for "lowlife elements" within the tribes merely contributed to a sense of marginalization and allowed AQI to develop a following and undermine tribal authority. But as Thamer al-Assafi pointed out in an interview, AQI’s influence was not merely ideological. “When the foreign Arabs came in, they came in with suitcases full of dollars, and they started organizing cells. They got in touch with the Iraqi people.”69 This financial incentive was a powerful one in a country without a stable economic infrastructure. Unemployment was rising because government ministries were not able to pay their employees or start new projects to hire local workers. The funds that AQI brought with it from abroad to fund their operations were welcomed the Anbari population because it provided a new source of revenue. Additionally, AQI was a capable military partner, and despite its extremist views and violent tactics, it worked closely with the resistance throughout 2004 against their common enemies: the Coalition and the country’s new political elite, dominated by the Shiʿa majority.70 Out of necessity members of the resistance continued to support AQI to prevent the expansion of the U.S.’s program. In spite of these benefits, shaykhs and other local leaders needed to look elsewhere to preserve their autonomy and expand their authority as AQI started subverting their ability to influence the middle ground so that the group could dominate the process of shaping present and future realities on the middle ground. In November 2004, on the eve of the Second Battle of Fallujah, the resistance movement in the city was confident that it could force the coalition into another round of negotiations.71 While it is true that U.S. forces were forced to negotiate with the militias in the city in the spring, it was for political, not military reasons, as the media pressure on the coalition and the new government was seen as a hindrance to future development in the country. After a month of fighting the U.S. forced the remaining members of the resistance from from the city, challenging the movement’s assumptions about its own strength. Over the course of the battle, the resistance

68 Khadim Muhammad Faris Fahadawi al-Dulaymi, “Interview 18,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 264. 69 Thamer Ibrahim Tahir Al-Assafi and Abdullah Jallal Mukhif al-Faraji, “Interview 2,” 34. 70 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 34. 71 Michael M. Walker, “The Indirect Approach: Engaging the Tribes,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 70. 25

lost between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters, and hundreds more fled the city in the days and weeks beforehand. In comparison, civilian deaths, according to the Iraq Body Count project, numbered between 581-670, while the Coalition scarcely lost more than 100.72 Although fighting in Fallujah was by no means finished, the defeat shattered the resistance’s Iraqi leadership, enabling AQI to assume a position of dominance in its relationship with the tribal population in al-Anbar. Until November 2004, the group served as a valuable ally in the fight against the U.S., but afterwards it increasingly posed a threat to the local population’s desire for autonomy by imposing its political program onto its partners. Following the Battle of Fallujah, the next battle in al-Anbar would be a political one as the country prepared for the January 2005 elections to establish a new transitional government, one of three elections to take place that year. However, many Sunni parties in al-Anbar and in Salah ad-Din boycotted the election due to pressure from AQI who was attempting to discredit the new government and the occupation. To dissuade Sunnis from participating “Sunni government officials and candidates had been shot, stabbed, kidnapped, blown up at home and blown up in their cars.”73 AQI’s intimidation tactics created a new state of fear for Anbaris that crippled any opposition to the group. The community’s silence would do more to contribute to its marginalization than alleviate it, as the country’s new electoral process was based on nation-wide votes and not provincial representation. Consequently, Iraq’s Sunni-dominant provinces were excluded from official decision making at a critical moment in the country’s history.74 Most in the province remained silent to avoid the AQI’s violence, which the group understood to be passive support for its political program. Despite the fact that AQI’s actions were creating much resentment among Iraqis, the will to push back against AQI seemed to be absent, especially after the group targeted al-Anbar’s elites, assassinating or forcing them to flee abroad. After “clearing” its local opposition from the middle ground, AQI imposed its program on the Anbari

72 Charles Recknagel and Kathleen Ridolfo, “From Fallujah to Al-Qaim,” Asia Times Online, May 13 2005; Ricks, Fiasco, 400; Lily Hamourtziadou, “Besieged: Living and Dying in Fallujah,” Iraq Body Count, 19 June 2016, https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/besieged_fallujah/. 73 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 176. 74 In al-Anbar province voter turnout was only 2 percent, which translated to six seats in the national parliament. Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq: Third Edition (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 2012), 289. 26

population as the dominant power in the province with the sole authority to define Iraq’s political and cultural landscape.75 Though the organization silenced its opposition and minimized cooperation with the Coalition, it did not build support local support. Rather, the Anbari population adhered to the group’s restrictive rules in order to avoid harsh punishment and execution.76 While it is unclear if the province’s shaykhs, intellectuals, and military leaders left at the behest of their followers—as some insist—or in fear of their lives,77 those shaykhs who remained in Iraq played major roles in forging new relationships with coalition forces in 2005 and 2006. While there remained a number of tribal leaders who cooperated with AQI, a growing number of shaykhs saw the imposition of the group’s jihadist program as antagonistic to their culture of independence. To assure a more favorable outcome from the conflict, these shaykhs sought out a more viable partnership that would change the balance of power on the middle ground, and allow them to persuade others to accommodate their culture and goals.78 This shift first occurred in the westernmost city of al-Qaʾim along the border with Syria, where the decision to support or fight AQI was simply the latest in a ongoing conflict between local tribes. Al-Qaʾim: The War Feeds a Tribal Conflict (2005) Al-Qaʾim and much of the surrounding area had long been dominated by the Albu Mahal tribe, while smaller tribes like the Albu Karbuli and Albu Salman struggled to get the same access to political and financial resources. When the Coalition entered the city in 2003, their violent and humiliating behavior fueled support for the resistance and more extreme groups like AQI. However, the presence of foreign powers presented the opportunity for the city’s smaller tribes to partner with the U.S. and diminish the Albu Mahal’s authority, changing the balance of power between the tribes to shape a new reality on the middle ground that was more favorable to

75 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 5 76 The organization has been noted for utilizing a number of punishments such as public beatings, rape, abduction, and torture. Additionally, many Iraqis were not fond of the social restrictions on smoking or specific way in which they were to pray. See interview Miriam, “Interview 1,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009); Michael M. Walker, “The Indirect Approach: Engaging the Tribes,” 70. 77 While this dynamic does not come through in the accounts given by tribal sheikhs it is mentioned by Brigadier General Reist, who was deeply involved in initiating negotiations between tribal leaderships inside and outside the country. David G. Reist, “Enabling the Awakening, Part I,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 156-157. 78 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x 27

them. Rather than inciting new conflict, the entrance of U.S. forces in the city fed into an ongoing power struggle between several tribes for dominance. By playing the U.S. and AQI off one another, the shaykhs of al-Qaʾim used the dynamics of the larger conflict to achieve their aims locally, and create conditions on the middle ground that were more favorable to them. In the spring of 2003, shaykhs from al-Qaʾim’s smaller tribes relayed information implicating Albu Mahal members in insurgent activities. As a result, the paramount shaykh of the Albu Mahal, Sabah al-Sattam, was detained in April 2003, but was released relatively quickly and became involved in meetings with the Americans in late-2003.79 However, Shaykh Sabah’s detainment was not entirely baseless, as the Albu Mahal was known to have participated in the resistance and fought against the Coalition in 2003 and 2004 because the U.S. presence was perceived as a threat to the tribe’s control over cross border trafficking and local politics.80 Shaykh Sabah noted that, “some of the tribes… wanted to retaliate against us [the Albu Mahal] by using the Coalition forces. We, as a tribe, we did not want to create any conflicts among us, especially after the invasion of the Coalition forces.”81 Although Sabah does not acknowledge his role in the resistance, in this interview with the Marine Corps, he indirectly acknowledges that his tribe did not want to become divided while the threat of the Coalition was looming as this would weaken its position in the city. Meanwhile the smaller tribes remained committed to forcing the Albu Mahal to recognize their influence in the realities of the city by forming alliances with more powerful partners in the conflict. This inter-tribal rivalry remained constant in al-Qaʾim as the Albu Mahal and its opposition found new partners throughout the conflict to partner with, limiting the influence of the other on the middle ground. The role of external actors in this struggle for dominance, however, brought significant changes to life in the city as they brought with them their own visions for the future, altering the tribal nature of the city’s politics to resemble the larger conflict in Iraq. In 2005, the Albu Karbuli and Albu Salman sided with AQI to gain access to the organization’s resources and offset the Albu Mahal’s local resistance effort.82 The partnership

79 Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 139. 80 Carter Malkasian, Illusion of Victory, 46. 81 Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” 139. 82 Carter Malkasian, Illusion of Victory, 46. 28

bore fruit for these minor tribes as AQI seized greater control over smuggling and trade that flowed through the city, undermining the Albu Mahal’s financial and political standing. Shaykh Sabah said that, “al-Qaʿida tried to isolate and to intimidate the [tribes] in the [area],” and, “stop the Iraqis themselves from having any opinions on the ground. The only people that we should listen to were them.”83 He cites the increasing number of attacks against Iraqis as the prime reason that the Albu Mahal started to fight against al-Qaʿida, but this seems to only a part of their motivation. As Carter Malkasian argues, the Albu Mahal—and other tribes—was equally motivated to restore its position of dominance after AQI entered its territory.84 For the Albu Mahal to become subject to foreign rule would have been a troubling transition, but for the other two tribes, diminishing the status of the Albu Mahal elevated their status in al-Qaʾim’s political sphere. Shaykh Sabah said that “we started to understand their [AQI’s] mission was to destroy our tribe.”85 The threat that AQI posed to the Albu Mahal led its shaykhs to mobilize their followers by invoking a sense of group solidarity to enter a feud with the group. Though the tribe initially fought the Coalition, the shaykhs of the Albu Mahal realigned themselves to eliminate the greater threat to their ability to dictate the political conditions in al-Qaim and restrict other tribes from influencing the process of creation on the middle ground. After months of back-and-forth conflict the two sides remained in gridlock, and were unwilling to share power by cooperating and accommodating one another. Rather both the Albu Mahal and AQI understood the other as a threat to its power in the city that needed to be cleared from the middle ground, so that one group could control the social and political narratives in the city.86 In a final effort to maintain control of al-Qaʾim, Shaykh Sabah created the “Desert Protectors” with assistance from the Minister of Defense Sadoun al-Dulaimi and the Coalition.87 By appealing to the Coalition’s interests in Iraq, Shaykh Sabah played the foreign powers in Iraq against each other, expelling AQI from the city by November 2005. Through his partnership with the Coalition on the middle ground, Sabah restored his dominant position in al-Qaʾim, marking the first major shift towards cooperating with the U.S. in the province.88

83 Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” 140. 84 Carter Malkasian, Illusion of Victory, 46. 85 Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” 141. 86 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words, 5. 87 Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” 142. 88 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 8. 29

The developments in al-Qaʾim signaled a shift in dominance on the middle ground as new partnerships started to form between tribal groups and the Coalition, challenging AQI’s influence in determining the realities that were emerging from the conflict in al-Anbar. Shaykh Sabah believed that once other tribal leaders saw that working with the Coalition was in their best interest they would pursue a relationship to expand their influence. After two years of fighting the Coalition, al-Anbar’s leadership had little to show for it. Carter Malkasian poses that at this point in the war, “support for violent resistance to the occupation—their [the resistance’s] raison d’etre—had weakened.”89 While it is true that resistance to the occupation weakened, the resistance movement was not opposing the occupation for opposition’s sake. Rather, in al-Anbar, the local population sought to improve its control over the province’s economy and improve its own political influence on the national level. Resisting the occupation was a means to that end. However, the progress towards improving the conditions in al-Anbar had not only stalled, but was moving backwards as AQI’s influence made life unbearable. In the process of resisting one foreign power the tribes became subordinated by another, and needed to choose which would be more beneficial to protecting tribal interests in the long- term. While the offenses committed by the Coalition were hard to forget, Iraqis knew the U.S. could not maintain a foreign presence in Iraq indefinitely, whereas AQI meant to permanently establish its own Islamic state in the country. Though the tribes were divided over how to achieve greater influence, there was a growing sense that temporarily being the subordinate partner to the Coalition would be better than losing all autonomy to AQI. As Pekka Hamalainen wrote of the Comanche Empire in the American Great Plains, the tribes of Iraq understood the others on the Iraqi middle ground “all too well and generally did not like what they saw.”90 Neither partnership was ideal, but tribal leaders needed to continue playing these foreign powers against each other “by appealing to what they perceive to be” the interests and goals of their partners to expand their influence. And in late 2005 the U.S. was becoming the more appealing option.91 Ramadi and the Origins of the Awakening (2005-06)

89 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 69. 90 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 8. 91 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x 30

On November 28, 2005, a reconciliation council was held between the Coalition and over two hundred Iraqi representatives from tribal, religious, and former military backgrounds from both pro- and anti-coalition groups. These leaders were concerned about the intrusion of foreign elements in the province, including U.S. forces, AQI, and the Shiʿa dominated Iraqi Army. Shaykh Khamis of the Albu Issa, one of the leading figures of the council, stated in May that, “the United States should withdraw gradually,” and that the violence in the city “can be solved by giving Sunnis our own forces. We should form units of men from Ramadi. They should work for the ministry of Defense, not for the United States.”92 For Shaykh Khamis, empowering the local population was the best solution to Ramadi’s immediate problems. The larger problem for the province’s leadership was how to expel these various powers from the country. The escalating levels of violence eliminated further conflict as a solution, and if these leaders cooperated further with AQI they risked losing more of their authority in the province. A negotiated settlement with the Coalition appeared to be the best course of action to gradually take back control of the province because the U.S. would eventually withdraw. This shift towards working with the Coalition demonstrates AQI’s decline in influence on the middle ground as it lost a number of its partners. The agreement made at the conference created the “Anbar Security Council,” which would take greater control of local security, and stipulated that the U.S. would begin troop withdrawals sooner.93 Unlike AQI, the Coalition showed that it was willing to accommodate the tribes and collaborate in the process of creating the dynamic realities of the middle ground, whereas AQI wanted unconditional support for its state project.94 The fact that many of these community leaders were involved in operations against U.S. forces was not lost on U.S. officials, but they were willing to look beyond this tension to minimize AQI's influence on the middle ground.95 For the local leaders in attendance, the concessions they received were momentous: the U.S. recognized them as legitimate figures in the community and committed to reducing its troop

92 Khamis Abdul Karim Mukhlif al-Fahadawi, quoted in Malkasian, Illusion of Victory, 72. 93 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 70-71; This policy was openly advocated for by senior military officers in Iraq, including General Casey the highest ranking U.S. officer in the country. 94 In a letter from 2007, the head of AQI called for Ansar al-Sunna join AQI, “the most senior group” in the country because of a fatwa “making it illegal to have more than one jihad group in one country.” Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, “Letter from Abu Hamza to Ansar al-Sunnah Highlighting Divisions,” (Harmony Document NMEC-2007-636878). 95 William Doyle, A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq (New York: Nal Caliber, 2011), Kindle book position 1398. 31

presence in the country. The success of the conference opened up new opportunities for these shaykhs to expand their influence as they initiated a new relationship with the Coalition, starting a new process of negotiation and accommodation as the two created a set of common goals and a new political reality in al-Anbar. While these local leaders quickly mobilized to take control of Ramadi’s security, including the December 15 parliamentary elections, they needed to maintain their distance from the coalition to preserve their legitimacy among their supporters. As Shaykh Ali Hatim said in 2009, “We wanted to show that [the al-Anbar Security Council] was wholly Iraqi and to incite them [the people] and to bring them into the fold.”96 Although the Security Council was cooperating with U.S. forces to a greater extent, many Iraqis still opposed the Coalition. The Security Council’s partnership with the U.S. should be viewed as an initiative to restore tribal authority and autonomy, which was diminished by the encroachment of various foreign powers in al-Anbar. However, AQI used the tribal relationship with the Coalition to discredit the authority of these shaykhs and bolster its influence within these tribes, which was the greatest obstacle to tribal leaders trying to avoid being dictated to by others. Starting on January 5, AQI launched a new offensive that targeted those collaborating with the Coalition by attacking a police recruiting drive near the city’s glass factory, where over 1,000 had gathered. The attack killed 60 Iraqis, two Americans, and wounded dozens of others.97 One AQI leader commanding an area in northern Ramadi said that “this tribal system is un- Islamic. We are proud to kill tribal leaders who are helping the Americans.”98 The intimidation campaign in Ramadi was particularly intense as a rise in assassinations, abductions, and bombings pushed a large portion of the city’s tribal leadership to flee abroad. Despite the rise in violence, the community’s resolve initially remained unwavering. But following the assassination of Shaykh Nasr al-Fahadawi, one of the primary figures of the security council and one of the leading shaykhs in the Albu Fahad tribe,99 on January 16, “almost all Nasr’s loyalists had either submitted to AQI or resumed fighting US forces as the resistance.”100 The rising levels

96 Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” 109. 97 “Recruiting in Ramadi: Attacks, Few Applicants,” NBC, last updated March 28, 2006. 98 Khalid al-Ansary and Ali Adeeb, “Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 2006. 99 Shaykh Nasr also had a notable role within the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades. Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 77-78. 100 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 78. 32

of violence forced the local population in Ramadi to confront the fact that AQI had not been cleared from the middle ground, and that its influence in creating their daily realities could not be ignored. With a significant portion of tribal leadership outside of the province, an atmosphere of fear returned to the province as major shaykhs fled abroad. Among the small number of shaykhs remaining in al-Anbar, many of whom were lower in the traditional hierarchy, was Abd al-Sattar al-Rishawi, an illiterate smuggler of the Albu Risha tribe. While the Albu Risha maintained relationships with both the resistance and the Coalition, it was targeted by AQI for supporting the occupation. After several members of Abd al-Sattar’s immediate family were assassinated by AQI Abd al-Sattar was forced to turn towards other tribal leaders and then the Coalition to avenge his family members and eliminate AQI’s influence from the city. Though he likely did not trust the Coalition, as the leader of a smaller and less influential tribe he needed external support to secure his reputation and maintain his tribe’s access to financial resources. By partnering solely with the Coalition Abd al-Sattar demonstrated that AQI was hampering his efforts to expand his authority. His partnership with other shaykhs and the Coalition marked a major shift on the middle ground, changing power dynamics in al-Anbar and contributing to the creation of an altogether different reality shaped by these new alliances. The extent to which the Albu Risha participated in the al-Anbar Security Council is unclear, but it was among the most active tribes fighting AQI in late 2005 and early 2006, providing extensive intelligence to the coalition. As AQI increased its violence against the tribe more shaykhs refused to join Abd al-Sattar because they believed they would become targets themselves. Shaykh Wissam, a high-ranking shaykh in al-Anbar and in neighboring Salah al-Din Province, noted in 2009 that this was “because too many terrorists were about on the road looking for people that would cooperate with us [Abd al-Sattar and himself], and they would eliminate them.”101 Similar to the Albu Mahal in al-Qaʾim, the Albu Risha and AQI viewed each other as obstacles to achieving their objectives in the country, and only by clearing AQI from the

101 Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aeithawi, “Interview 4,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 55. 33

middle ground would the Albu Risha and its tribal partners be able to assert its own influence and avoid the organization’s brutality.102 These shaykhs stood to gain a tremendous amount of authority if they could remove AQI’s influence from the province. Neutralizing this threat to their fellow tribesmen would enhance their reputations within their tribes, especially in the absence of more influential tribal leaders.103 Additionally, declaring war on AQI would appeal to the Coalition’s goals in Iraq and provide this group with a partnership that would enable it to assume a major position on the middle ground, where it could contribute to shaping the province’s post-war realities in partnership with the Coalition and the government. In the process of creating a new, mutually comprehensible world between these groups Abd al-Sattar and the other shaykhs embraced a distorted understanding of the Coalition’s political objectives that aligned with their own interests. Through this process of engagement and accommodation, the tribal leaders and the Coalition were able to see each other as much needed partners, instead of enemies.104 Shared Interests, Divergent Goals: The Tribal-U.S. Alliance (2006) Throughout the Summer of 2006, Abd al-Sattar cultivated relationships within the U.S. military that helped him to rise in stature and propel his tribal movement forward.105 One of the officers was Captain Travis Patriquin, who arrived in al-Anbar in May 2006 with a new U.S. Army command, and was in charge of brigade level contacts with tribal authorities. Over the course of the summer, Patriquin and Abd al-Sattar developed a close relationship that enabled them to achieve their respective goals in the province. For Abd al-Sattar, Patriquin was the key to U.S. support, and conversely, Patriquin viewed Abd al-Sattar as another step towards developing tribal support in Ramadi. While there were benefits to working together, the Coalition and these tribal leaders did not share the same long-term goals. But in order to fulfill their short term needs both sides adopted a distorted understanding the other’s interests to facilitate their short-term partnership in shaping the realities of the middle ground.

102 According to a woman who lived in an area under AQI’s control in Ramadi, the group ruled by creating a general atmosphere of fear, punishing those who did not cooperate with their authority with public beatings, torture, abduction, rape, and beheading. She added that the group created a network of informants within the local population to assist the group root out opposition and those who did not adhere to the group’s strict social codes that prohibited smoking, regulated dress, and created new restrictions on gender relations. Miriam, “Interview 1,” 19-22. 103 William Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 74. 104 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x 105 Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aeithawi, “Interview 4,” 56. 34

Patriquin believed that by engaging local shaykhs he would be able to increase recruitment levels for the ISF and tribal support for new Iraqi government institutions. Many military officials, Patriquin included, saw the actions local leaders took against AQI as indications that the tribes were ready to work with the Coalition to secure itself. Although this was the case, these officials held a distorted understanding of tribal interests as closely aligned with those of the U.S. Such misunderstandings were inherent to the formation of the middle ground where new realities were be created, and where new narratives of a group’s partners needed to be formed. As happened in this case, the two groups attempted to “adjust their differences,” by engaging in a “process of creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings,” to redefine and persuade the other.106 As a result of the Coalition’s perception that its tribal partners would integrate themselves into government structures, U.S. officials were forced to balance their support for their tribal partners and the government in Baghdad, which tribal leaders were ambivalent towards. Despite this misperception of tribal leaders’ long term goals, the two sides increased their cooperation to minimize AQI violence. An increase in AQI violence provided Abd al-Sattar’s movement with the momentum needed to expand its base among the tribal population. Specifically, the assassination of Shaykh Khalid Araq al-Ataymi of the Abu Ali Jassim tribe on August 21 sparked a great deal of outrage in the city. Shaykh Wissam recalled that “We used [Shaykh Khalid’s] tribe under the pretext of vengeance. We elicited his tribe to help us.”107 With the death of this prominent shaykh, the tribe overcame its fear of AQI’s violent tactics and joined the other tribes to seek the appropriate blood debt from the organization. But the shaykh’s death was not the only event that encouraged Ramadi’s tribes to move against AQI. Following an attack on a new police station in Ramadi, locally recruited police reinitiated patrols, demonstrating that the community was willing to stand up against AQI in order to protect itself.108 Additionally, the death of the AQI leader, Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, on July 7 encouraged the Coalition to increase its operations in the province

106 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x 107 Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aeithawi, “Interview 4,” 55. 108 The date of the attack is unclear as Tariq claimed it occurred the same month the station opened, but other sources indicate the attack was carried out on August, 21. Additionally, while Tariq may be exaggerating about when patrols restarted, other sources show that the police did go out later that day. Tariq Yusif Mohammad al- Thiyabi, “Interview 12,” 186-187; William Doyle, Soldier’s Dream, location 1747; Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 111. 35

to capitalize on any internal confusion within AQI.109 By the Fall of 2006 the tribal shaykhs and the Coalition were ready to openly declare war against AQI as joint partners. On September 14, Shaykh Abd al-Sattar publicly announced the establishment of the “Anbar Awakening” (ṣaḥwat al-Anbar) movement at a conference held in his guesthouse. Dozens of shaykhs, from 25 of al-Anbar’s 31 tribes, came to show their nominal support for the movement. In his statement, Abd al-Sattar declared an 11 point platform for the movement that included, 1. Election of a new Provincial Congress.

2. Formation of Anbar Province Shaykhs Congress, with the condition that none was or will be a terrorist supporter or collaborator.

3. Begin an open dialogue with Baʿth Party members, except those involved in criminal / terrorist acts in order to quell all insurgent activities with all popular groups.

4. Review the formation of the Iraqi Security Forces and the Iraqi Army, with tribal shaykhs vouching for those recruited.

5. Provide security for highway travelers in Anbar Province.

6. Stand against terrorism wherever and whenever it occurs, condemn attacks against Coalition forces, and maintain presence of Coalition forces as long as needed or until stability and security are established in Anbar Province.

7. No one shall bear arms except government-authorized Iraqi Security Forces and the Iraqi Army.

109 Sean B. Macfarland, “Partnering with the Tribes in Ramadi,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 178. 36

8. Condemn all actions taken by individuals, families, and tribes that give haven to terrorists and foreign fighters, and commend immediate legal and / or military remedies to rectify such acts.

9. Recommend measures to rebuild the economy, to entice industrial prosperity, and bolster the agricultural economy. Also find funds and resources to reopen existing manufacturing facilities. The main objective is to fight for welfare and deny the insurgents any grounds for recruitment.

10. Strengthen Shaykhdom authorities, help tribal leaders adjust to democratic changes in social behavior, and maintain shaykhs financially and ideologically so they can continue this drive.

11. Respect the law and constitution of the land, and support justice and its magistrates so no power will be above the law.110

This platform laid out the movement’s goals of expanding shaykhly authority over the province’s existing institutions, as well as creating new ones specifically for tribal leaders. If fully enacted, this program would make al-Anbar resemble a tribal enclave, that diminished the influence of all foreign powers, including the national government. Using its U.S-endorsed platform, the Anbar Awakening portrayed itself as a major power in al-Anbar, and revealed its vision for the province’s future. And by framing itself as a new political party, the group demonstrated to its Coalition partners that it would pursue its goals within Iraq’s developing political system, accommodating the U.S.’s goal of creating a democratic and inclusive Iraq. From this platform and the way the Awakening depicted itself, it is clear that its leadership intended to maintain its partnership with the U.S. in the long-term to create a more favorable reality for when the Coalition withdrew from Iraq and conceded its position on the middle ground. But the

110 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 112-113. 37

movement’s ascendency was still not guaranteed, as the group still faced opposition within the province, and particularly from tribal leaders who fled abroad. Al-Anbar’s traditionally higher ranking shaykhs were adamantly opposed to what they saw as up-starts attempting to replace them. Wissam recalled being rebuked by shaykhs abroad who told him, “‘How are you trying to fight al-Qaʿida? And besides, you’re not even real shaykhs. We are the shaykhs. You’re trying to pretend to be us.”111 With no physical presence in the province, these leaders had nothing to hold on to but their lineages and wealth, and the rise of Abd al-Sattar’s movement was particularly threatening. The co-regent of the Dulaimi Confederation, Shaykh Majed Ali al-Sulayman, referred to Abd al-Sattar as a “road gangster,” adding that he named his brother Ahmad the true head of the Awakening.112 While it is doubtful that Shaykh Majed held any sway over the Awakening movement, it is no surprise that these senior shaykhs would attempt to reassert their authority over the province in the same way as Abd al-Sattar. This transitional period was as much an opportunity to reaffirm traditional hierarchies as it was to restructure them.113 But the ability of the Anbar Awakening to meet the Coalition’s needs for local intelligence and manpower, enabled its leadership to outmaneuver more senior rivals on the middle ground as the group actively engaged with other groups in Iraq to shape the daily realities of al-Anbar. The Awakening Unfolds (2006-2007) In the fall of 2006, AQI maintained a strong presence throughout the province and staged a resurgence in Fallujah. In the early stages of the Awakening’s campaign against the organization support was mostly limited to the Albu Risha, the Albu Thiyab, the Albu Jassim, and the leaderships of a few other tribes. The reason these tribes expelled AQI so easily was due to their location in more rural, tribally homogeneous areas, adjacent to U.S. military bases. This is a major difference from the complex intermingling of tribes in downtown Ramadi, where over a dozen tribes overlap and intermarry, creating a quilt-work of familial networks throughout the city. The complicated urban landscape and AQI’s intricate web of informants and brutal intimidation tactics prevented tribes from unifying their members against the organization, and

111 Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aeithawi, “Interview 4,” 56-57. 112 Majed Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 131. 113 However, from the numbers of Albu Assaf that joined the Iraqi police it is clear that Ali and Majed did not have as much sway among their followers as Abd al-Sattar did with his. Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 102. 38

contributed to a more ambiguous state of power than throughout the borderland in the rest of the province. But the rate of the Awakening’s local success built the group’s reputation as a fighting force, and eventually its influence spread from one tribal area to another, emboldening more shaykhs to work with the coalition. After several months, AQI’s presence was significantly reduced and Ramadi started seeing signs of normalcy return to the city, signifying the efficacy of the tribal-Coalition partnership in changing the realities in al-Anbar. The perceived increase in security caused schools and small business to reopen, and a resurgence in employment.114 These small changes were major victories for the shaykhs because they were able to claim credit for bringing stability and improving the state of living in the city. The threat that AQI posed had not disappeared; however, the population’s willingness to reenter the public sphere indicated a major shift in Ramadi, as the people of Ramadi embraced the improved security created by the tribal-Coalition partnership. This new understanding of what cooperation with the Coalition could provide, created an alternative to AQI’s dominance. While it would take about a year for the awakening to take hold throughout the city and the rest of the province, the movement’s leaders were aware that when the Coalition left Iraq, they would once again need to adjust their differences, this time with the government’s ruling parties, to start a new process of accommodation and creation on the middle ground. Building a relationship with the central government would be difficult for the tribes as the two considered the other to be threats to their authority. In Baghdad, sectarian death squads acted with impunity, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, elected in December 2005, did not want others operating in al-Anbar. At the same time, the tribal leaders were equally concerned that the government would act in a sectarian way because they perceived several ministeries to be filled with extremists with direct links to Shiʿi militias that attacked both Sunnis and the Coalition.115 In spite of the mutual distrust, Abd al-Sattar and several other shaykhs met with Maliki in the fall of 2006. After some back-and-forth the prime minister lent his nominal support to the Awakening because the tribes were a better alternative than the jihadis in the province. Despite

114 William M. Jurney, “Counterinsurgency in Central Ramadi, Part I,” in Al-Anbar Awakening Vol. I, American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 199. 115 Shaykh Sabah stated in an interview that “at the Ministry of Interior, there are people who speak Iranian, and other locations, too. Iranian intelligence—I don’t know what they call it—they are the ones who are ruling the country. The Iranian infiltration into Iraq is very strong.” Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji Al-Aziz, “Interview 9,” 147. 39

the Awakening’s careful planning, the meeting with government officials undermined its authority and incited accusations that the shaykhs were government stooges.116 Additionally, Maliki refused to send financial or military aid for fear of assisting Sunni death squads, limiting the movement’s public support and giving more credibility to the awakening’s competitors in the province. While the Awakening’s leaders had been able to cultivate beneficial relationships with the Coalition, persuading government officials to accommodate their needs on the middle ground would prove to be a more frustrating process, as the government saw the tribes as subjects, rather than equal partners. The Awakening needed to overcome its image vis-á-vis the government as an other to prevent the prime minister from “dictating the terms of accommodation” to the tribes so that it could contribute to the process of creation on the middle ground as an equal partner. At this moment, when the popularity of the Awakening’s leadership was in question, AQI attempted to expand its influence by rebranding itself as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) on October 15, 2006.117 The group's rebranding effort, however, did not alter its limited influence in Iraq. In fact, ISI came into frequent conflict with other resistance groups throughout 2006 and 2007 over control of the movement's direction.118 In spite of ISI’s detractors, it committed itself to forcing the population back to the middle ground through force, restoring the passive support that it enjoyed earlier in the conflict. The group remained highly active and continuing to launch major attacks on rival groups throughout the country, but its domineering practices limited the number of Iraqis that were willing to cooperate with it. With an improved security situation brought by the tribal-Coalition partnership, Iraqis no longer felt the need to accept ISI’s beliefs or practices to survive, and as a result the group’s influence on the middle ground started to decline.

116 According to Shaykh Wissam, “when the people got wind of the fact that the government was about to help us out with men and materiel—meaning guns—they said immediately that we sold out to the government. Now we’re lining our pockets, we’re taking ammo and not giving it to the people. We’re taking weapons and not giving them to the people, meaning the revolution is not genuine anymore, meaning his speech was full of landmines.” He later added that the reason this support never materialized was because “the political entities in Baghdad understood our Awakening to be against them, and that we were about to go into Baghdad and take care of them. So there was pressure from these political entities on the ambassador, and the ambassador on Bush, and back.” Wissam Abd al- Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aeithawi, “Interview 4,” 59-60. 117 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 89. 118 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 90-91. 40

Throughout 2007, ISI’s power waned considerably. Although attacks persisted at a high rate for much of the year, including several reported instances of chemical attacks,119 contemporary reports speculated that the organization was in its death throes, and merely attempting to regain influence through even greater violence. By the end of 2007 it was clear that ISI could not exert itself as it had in 2005 and that the Anbar Awakening and the Coalition successfully achieved their goal of diminishing ISI’s role in the province. The next step was to start rebuilding the country and easing tribal-government relations, particularly with the ruling Iraqi Islamic Party in al-Anbar’s provincial government. This new process of creating a new set of shared, mutually understood values and goals between the Anbar Awakening and the provincial and national government would be a long and difficult process. Especially so in al- Anbar, where tribal leaders sought to remove the Iraqi Islamic Party from power because it was perceived to be beholden to Baghdad's interests and not those of the local population.120 As combat operations against ISI winded down and U.S. troops initiated their withdrawals, the realities created through tribal-Coalition cooperation eroded for a new middle ground between the province and the government to emerge. While the actors involved maintained their individual goals, the lighter presence of Coalition and AQI forces created a new environment for tribal-government engagement to shape the post-conflict realities in Iraq. The Awakening Unravels (2008-2009) To commemorate the victory over AQI, President George W. Bush made a trip to Iraq to see first-hand the progress that had been made in the country. On September 4, 2007, he visited Ramadi and met with leaders from the Anbar Awakening, and was photographed with Abd al- Sattar, formalizing his dramatic rise from being a minor shaykh, to being a public symbol of a major tribal movement.121 He restored his tribe’s control over its smuggling routes, secured new business contracts with the government, and obtained a wealth of political capital that secured his position as the Albu Risha’s leader. Yet Abd al-Sattar may have grown too influential for some within the province. Ten days after Bush’s visit, Abd al-Sattar was assassinated by a roadside bomb. While the shaykh’s aggressive tactics were effective, they earned him many enemies among jihadists and their tribal supporters, including members of the Albu Risha.

119 Richard A. Oppel, Jr. “U.S. Says it Found Chemicals at Iraqi Bomb Factory,” New York Times, February 22, 2007. 120 Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” 117. 121 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 162. 41

Unsurprisingly, his success earned him just as many detractors within the Awakening, with major political divisions emerging in the movement as early as mid-2006.122 No group claimed responsibility for Abd al-Sattar’s death. Though many Western officials attributed the attack to ISI, there were rumors implicating other tribal leaders in his death. With these divisions and questions surrounding Abd al-Sattar’s death, the Awakening movement became plagued by internal squabbling and personal rivalries. Abd al-Sattar’s brother, Shaykh Ahmad al-Rishawi, inherited his position as the head of the Albu Risha and as the leader of the Awakening movement. While the conflict with AQI was largely over, new internal ones emerged over the movement’s direction, and Ahmad became the subject of much resentment from other shaykhs. This development was particularly visible after Ahmad converted the Awakening into a political party during the provincial elections in 2009, as these shaykhs ran in opposition to him in order to obtain positions that better reflected their roles on the front lines against AQI. These other shaykhs, however, did not campaign as a unified bloc, and as a result, the Awakening Party won a majority, marking a victory for the Albu Risha and a defeat for the Anbar Awakening movement.123 By building upon the momentum of the Awakening, Ahmad was able to achieve the movement’s stated goals, and established himself on the national stage. From this position he was able to benefit from his economic partnerships with the Central Government and the U.S. However, the tribe’s former partners wanted a greater portion of the resources that were coming into the province. Indeed the 2009 elections highlighted the internal divisions within the tribal community as individual leaders positioned themselves to expand their authority in the province and even on the national level. While the conflict with AQI brought many tribes together to fight against a common enemy, deep divisions remained between them, and without this external group to oppose, the unity among the tribes dissolved. Throughout the Iraq War, the tribal leaders that led the Anbar Awakening looked past their conflicting interests to remove the immediate threat to their collective culture, but without the threat of AQI, divisions resurfaced and shaykhs returned to competing and cooperating with one another to achieve political and economic supremacy. While these dynamics occurred before and throughout the Iraq War, the reemergence of this power struggle between tribal leaders infringed upon the province’s ability to influence

122 Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” 111. 123 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 165. 42

developments on the middle ground with Baghdad. With U.S. troops leaving the country, the tribes had no partner to counter Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian policies. At the same time, they were not united in confronting al-Maliki’s sectarianism, and those who attempted to curtail such programs from coming to fruition by joining government were perceived as government stooges and lost their legitimacy. And so in 2009, when the Iraq War was winding down, the middle ground, as a space of negotiation, conflict, and change persisted. As a result, there remained a number of political groups competing for power, preventing the vacuum of political authority from being filled by a single political force in al-Anbar province.

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Chapter Two An Ideological Imposition: The U.S. in Iraq

On February 11, 2003, in the third Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Iraq that year, the Committee Chairman, Dick Lugar (R. Indiana) asked, “What must we do to help ensure that Iraq becomes a secure and responsible member of the world community following any potential military action?” This question came 15 months after the initial strikes in Afghanistan and little over a month before the U.S. and its Coalition partners invaded Iraq. America was on war footing, and it was aiming for Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq who had ruled with an iron fist and an extensive intelligence apparatus for 24 years. Though military action was not certain, Senator Lugar was not simply thinking about whether or not the U.S. would invade, but what would happen the day after. We must avoid any tendency to view military operations in Iraq as separate from reconstruction of Iraq. In fact, our ability to secure allies for any necessary military action will be greatly enhanced if we have laid out a clear vision of how the United States will work with the international community to feed and shelter Iraq's people, help establish responsible governance, and eliminate weapons of mass destruction. We must not assume that our commitment of armed forces will end if and when Saddam Hussein is dislodged from power. Even under the best post-Saddam scenarios, Iraq will remain an enormous security challenge that is likely to require substantial American and allied troops.1

While his call for a clear vision for U.S. action was wise, it appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In the following months the U.S.-led Coalition became deeply involved in an increasingly violent insurgency. Although Senator Lugar’s statement shows that the consequences of U.S. action in Iraq were not lost on the American public, nor its elected officials, the difficulties of reconstruction, establishing governance and stability in Iraq proved more difficult than many in government imagined.

1 Dick Lugar, “The Future of Iraq,” (Hearing, Senate Foreign Relation Committee, Washington D.C., February, 11, 2003). 44

The stated reasons for U.S. involvement in Iraq would change frequently over the course of the conflict, from removing Saddam and eliminating his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, to stabilizing the country and removing the threat of terrorism. But these were short- term interests in Iraq, and mere justifications for U.S. troops to continue operating in the country. In the long-term, the George W. Bush administration sought to establish a “peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure,” Iraq, “where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.” The administration wanted to create an ally in the region that it could partner with in spreading democracy, in economic development, and in fighting weapons proliferation and terrorism.2 However, this chapter argues that the ideals and the political system the Coalition brought to Iraq were not given firm roots because the U.S. did not take the necessary measures to ensure that Iraq's various communities would advance the Bush administration's neoconservative project after the U.S. withdrew from the country.3 In terms of the middle ground the U.S.-led Coalition succeeded in creating a new political reality by forming partnerships with various communities, but it failed to foster inter- Iraqi relationships that would support the institutions it worked to establish over the course of the Iraq War.4 This failure led to the reemergence of sectarian conflict and renewed feelings of marginalization after the completion of U.S. troop withdrawals in 2011. Richard White’s idea of a middle ground, a shared space where multiple groups interact to create new realities through processes of cooperation and conflict, can be useful to understand the world developed in Iraq in the period leading up to 2011. However, this chapter employs this concept to refer to the U.S.’s political program of manufacturing a middle ground between Iraq’s different communities to advance its own vision for Iraq’s future. The U.S.’s goal was not to rule over Iraq directly, but to to instill the American values and institutions necessary to form an ideologically compatible government in Iraq. While U.S. officials engaged Iraqis in a process of mutual accommodation, they did so in order to create the necessary conditions for Iraqis to

2 National Security Council, “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” (National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., November 2005), 3. 3 Neoconservatism relates to an American political movement that advocated the promotion of democracy and U.S. foreign interests, often through military means. This ideological movement formed out of reaction to the increase in pacifism in the U.S. during the 1960s and 70s. Generally speaking, neoconservatives have endorsed policies of supply-side economics and free market capitalism. 4 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), xv. 45

cooperate with one another in advancing its democratizing mission. By constructing the conditions of this engagement between Iraqis and the government, the U.S. dictated the terms of the middle ground and to advance its vision for Iraq. Yet the result of this manufactured middle ground, where different Iraqi groups interacted with one another, was not what the Bush administration envisioned. Rather, the new Iraqi political context was built on factionalism and intercommunal distrust, not stability or inclusivity. While a fair case may be made that developing inter-Iraqi relations was outside of the purview of the Coalition’s mission in Iraq, it was a major obstacle to creating an inclusive and stable democracy in the country. The resurgence of sectarianism in the absence of U.S. forces illustrates that the U.S. failed to create the conditions for mutual accommodation between Iraqi groups that would secure the U.S.’s neoconservative vision in Iraq. This chapter will examine the processes that contributed to the U.S.’s failure to control the developments in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, and the Coalition’s attempts to engage with, and dictate to, local actors on the middle ground. I begin by outlining U.S. interests in Iraq from 1990 and then discuss the invasion and early occupation, followed by a section that examines the U.S.’s implementation of its political project as the insurgency emerged in 2003 and 2004. The chapter then examines the dynamic nature of political relationships in Iraq between 2004-2006, and how the U.S. developed the capacity of its local partners and encouraged engagement between the government and the Sunni community. The chapter concludes by discussing the U.S.’s focus on institutional development and the impact of its political project as U.S. forces withdrew from the country. This chapter is based largely on the accounts of generals and other high-ranking officers as well as prominent figures from the George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. I have accessed these narratives primarily through a series of interviews conducted by the United States Marine Corps during the Iraq War, between 2006 and 2009. I have also used a number of materials that are publicly available such as congressional testimonies, op-ed pieces, and other government documents. Additionally, since this was a very publicized war, I incorporate first- hand accounts of relevant events published in newspapers and books written by contemporary journalists. In many of these sources the speaker, the editor, or both are trying to promote a specific agenda that may contradict other accounts or limit the scope of their narratives. While

46

this does problematize these sources, the opinions, explanations, and omissions of each individual will help to illustrate American priorities in Iraq. The Gulf War and Containing Saddam (1990-2003) On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein surprised much of the world when he invaded his southern neighbor Kuwait. Although tensions were building since the spring of that year, the unexpected offensive provoked hostility globally—particularly from the U.S. and the neighboring Gulf States. The U.S. President, George H.W. Bush, quickly condemned the military action and pledged his support for the Kuwaiti government, and following some half- hearted diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iraq, American forces and their Coalition partners—thirty-one nations in all—began a campaign to expel the Iraqi dictator from Kuwait in January, 1991. The Coalition took control of Kuwait and parts of southern Iraq with minimal resistance, but made no attempt to attack Baghdad because the U.S. saw regime change as being outside of the mission’s scope. But the U.S. encouraged Iraqis to rise up on their own by dropping leaflets calling for an uprising. Indeed, President Bush himself urged the people of Iraq to revolt when declaring the conclusion of the Coalition’s operations.5 Despite this call to arms, the U.S. military did little to assist those Iraqis who did challenge Saddam’s rule, and about 100,000 Iraqis throughout the country were killed in the military crackdown that followed.6 American inaction to Iraqi suffering spurred much consternation among Iraqis, and some discomfort among neoconservative thinkers.7 However, the U.S. administration had accomplished its objective of removing Saddam’s forces from Kuwait and administration officials did not publicly challenge Bush’s decision not to attack Baghdad. For many in the first Bush Administration, the experience of the Gulf War framed the way in which they thought of foreign policy. Though the U.S. succeeded militarily and politically in 1991, it did not succeed in assisting the people of Iraq. With that country still lacking democracy and freedom, the brief conflict was viewed from an ideological perspective as

5 Andrew Rosenthal, “War in the Gulf: The President; Bush Halts Offensive Combat; Kuwait Freed, Iraqis Crushed,” NYT, Feb. 02, 1991. 6 “Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and its Aftermath,” Human Rights Watch, June 1, 1992, https://www.hrw.org/report/1992/06/01/endless-torment/1991-uprising-iraq-and-its-aftermath. 7 Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007), 48-51; Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq: Third Edition (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2012), 232. 47

a failure, particularly for figures like Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense. In an essay titled “Victory Came Too Easily,” Wolfowitz writes a conflicted analysis recognizing mistakes that were made during the Gulf War, while also defending the decisions the administration took. “I honestly believed at the time that we should have done more, but I honestly doubt it would have made any difference.” He goes on to argue that the possibility of a divided Iraq would have been even more disastrous for the region.8 Even though he adopted a view that the Gulf War had succeeded, he remained a strong advocate for regime change. Wolfowitz advocated this position again when he returned to government as a member of George W. Bush’s administration in 2001.9 Following the Gulf War, the George H.W. Bush administration sought to pursue a policy of preemption, arguing the need to deter regimes like Saddam Hussein’s from threatening the international order and American security. This policy was first made public when the Defense Planning Guidance was leaked in 1992. Written under the guidance of Dick Cheney, the then Secretary of Defense, and Paul Wolfowitz, the document states that the U.S. should “preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests.” The ideas contained in this draft policy were the products of the American experience in Iraq, and the new-found threats that authoritarian leaders like Saddam posed. “Consolidated non-democratic control of the resources of such a critical region could generate a critical threat to our country.”10 The defense strategy also calls for limiting the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and a strengthening of ties between democratic nations.11 Although the defense strategy was edited heavily to remove the ideas of preemption, American foreign policy in the first years of the post- Cold War era were shaped by the country’s economic and military posturing towards Iraq, which would continue throughout the decade. The Clinton Administration, starting in January 1993, continued a policy of economic sanctions and military containment set by its predecessor, designed to restrict Saddam’s movement and instigate opposition to his rule. However, in the minds of many neoconservatives, this minimalist approach to Iraq did not go far enough to punish Saddam for defying the

8 Paul Wolfowitz, “Victory Came Too Easy,” The National Interest, no. 35 (Spring 1994), 91-92. 9 George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate (New York: Firrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 29. 10 National Security Council, “Defense Planning Guidance,” ( National Security Strategy, 1992), 2. 11 National Security Council, “Defense Planning Guidance,” 2-3. 48

international community’s effort to find evidence of weapons programs in the country.12 In January 1998 the conservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC), published a letter addressed to President Clinton that claimed the U.S. could no longer rely on its Coalition partners in the Gulf nor the United Nations inspectors to prevent the proliferation of WMDs. The letter was signed by a number of prominent neoconservatives, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton, and called for military action to remove Saddam Hussein’s government. This publication indicated that, despite being out of office, this ideological bloc was committed to what it saw as precluding any threat from a hostile, non- democratic nation.13 In fact, Iraq was seen to be such a major threat by both parties that the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the Iraq Liberation Act in October, 1998,14 making regime change in Iraq an official, if only symbolic, U.S. policy.15 When neoconservatives like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton returned to senior positions in the White House it should have been clear from their activities during the inter-Bush years that Iraq would return to the foreground. As George Packer, an embedded journalist in Iraq later put it, “They saw Iraq as the test case for their ideas about American power and world leadership. Iraq represented the worst failure of the nineties and the first opportunity of the new American century.”16 Although concerns over WMDs were widespread, September 11, 2001 would be the true turning point in the U.S.’s approach to Iraq and the impetus for the U.S. invasion in 2003. On September 11, 2001 four commercial airliners were hijacked and used to strike U.S. economic, military, and political targets, killing nearly 3,000 people. A jihadi-salafist organization based in Afghanistan, al-Qaʿida, took credit for the planning and execution of the attacks. In a series of meetings at Camp David, later that month, the president and his national

12 In fact, Clinton continued to be criticized for being soft on Iraq even after ordering one of the largest operations in Iraq since 1991. Operation “Desert Fox” was deemed a success, and U.S. intelligence in the country reported that the regime was destabilized internally. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 18-19. 13 Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennet, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick, “Letter to President Clinton on Iraq,” Project for a New American Century, January 26, 1998. 14 The bill passed 360-38 in the house and was adopted by unanimous consent in the senate. “Final Vote Results for Roll Call 482,” Clerk House, accessed 12/01/2018, http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1998/roll482.xml. 15 Benjamin Gilman, “H.R. 4655 (105th): Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,” (House of Representatives Bill, Washington, D.C., 1998), Section 3. 16 George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 36. 49

security advisors agreed that the immediate problem was the Taliban Government in Afghanistan, which was harboring al-Qaʿida’s leadership. The U.S. military launched an air campaign in the country in October 2001 targeting the Taliban Government’s supply lines and military outposts. Already weakened by its isolationist policy and a severe drought, the Taliban regime quickly lost control of the country, leaving the capital city of Kabul was poorly defended. In December a second bombing campaign was launched on the Tora Bora Mountains in Eastern Afghanistan targeting Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks. 17 However, due to the porous nature of the border with Pakistan, he fled the country, evading capture and U.S. military strikes. American society was shaken by the September attacks, and with the war in Afghanistan ongoing the administration turned its attention to preventing future threats to American security. The first target in this preventative strategy was Iraq. The sanctions regime was seen to be collapsing, and despite numerous UN resolutions Saddam continued to defy weapons inspectors searching for WMD capabilities. As President Bush wrote in his 2010 memoir, “the conclusion that Saddam had WMD was nearly a universal consensus. My predecessor believed it. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill believed it. Intelligence agencies in Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, and Egypt believed it.”18 The fact that the Iraqi Army used chemical weapons in the 1980s against the Iranians during the Iraq-Iran War and against the Iraqi Kurdish population as a part of the Anfal Campaigns further supported this conclusion. With this information the Bush administration concluded Saddam and his regime was a threat to Iraqis, his neighbors, and the U.S. Several U.S. officials suspected a connection between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaʿida’s terror attack on September 11 because of its connection to other groups in the region. But al- Qaʿida’s vision for removing all regimes that were not truly Islamic, including Saddam Hussein’s Baʿth Party, was too extreme and too much of a threat to his rule.19 The Baʿth Party had its own conceptions of Islam, which aligned with the party’s ideology, and sought to limit non-Baʿthist influences in the country, such as jihadi-salafism, to protect its control over Iraq’s

17 David Loyn, In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British Russian and American Occupation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 202. 18 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010), 242. 19 Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 212. 50

religious sphere.20 After the invasion a former Baʿthist officials would explain that of the organizations that cooperated with the regime al-Qaʿida was not among them.21 Yet officials like Cheney were convinced a partnership existed, and could not be swayed by the intelligence community to believe otherwise.22 Due to this perceived threat, Bush ordered the new Commander of Central Command, General Thomas Franks, to formulate a strategy for combat operations in Iraq in November 2001. The invasion plan was crucial to Bush’s “coercive diplomacy” strategy, which was designed to pressure Saddam to cooperate with international sanctions and give up all WMD capabilities or face military consequences.23 The plan Franks and his staff created was militarily sound, and built on the U.S.’s experience fighting the Iraqi Army in the Gulf War in 1991. The planning process and the justification for the war as a whole, however, was justified by cherry-picked intelligence assessments that conformed to a politically convenient reality. The arguments that Saddam Hussein had a fully functional WMD program, was cooperating with terrorist organizations like al-Qaʿida, and was on the verge of losing power were later proved to be false after the conflict began. Richard Immerman writes that U.S. officials “too often saw intelligence reports, and those who wrote them, as obstacles to actions they were predisposed to take.”24 Bush administration officials frequently pressured the Intelligence Community and the State Department to find information that connected Saddam to al-Qaʿida.25 In one instance, Donald Rumsfeld dismissed an intelligence report that concluded there was no such relationship, stating that the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”26 Senior officials dismissed contradictory assessments in favor of those that promoted their international agenda, undermining not only their credibility but the planning process itself. In the March of 2003, after seventeen months of planning, a rapid offensive took place that removed Saddam Hussein from power. But quickly after the U.S. removed the Iraqi regime, it became apparent that limited planning had been done for how to replace it. Unlike in 1991, in

20 Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion, 115-117. 21 Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Doubleday, 2015), 105. 22 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 80. 23 George W. Bush, Decision Points, 234. 24 Richard Immerman, “Intelligence and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars,” Political Science Quarterly 131, no. 3 (Fall 2016), 478. 25 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 77-78; Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, David Rose, and David Wise, “The Path to War,” Vanity Fair, May 2004. 26 Quoted in Richard Immerman, “Intelligence and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars,” 487. 51

2003 there were significantly fewer countries willing to join the Coalition. After the U.S. failed to obtain an United Nations resolution condoning the war against Iraq, Bush was forced to continue with his invasion strategy with a “coalition of the willing” comprised primarily of American and British troops.27 The Coalition’s presence in Iraq was problematized further by a limited vision for post-war reconstruction, and a limited cultural awareness that would enable coalition forces to meaningfully engage with the population, particularly the country’s tribes.28 Armed with limited knowledge of their operating environment and an ideological mission of democratization, Coalition forces were not fully prepared with the practical or strategic training to instill the Bush administration’s neoconservative vision. More importantly, they were neither ready nor willing to accommodate the Coalition’s opposition as partners in creating a new Iraq. At the start of 2003 the Coalition sought to “dictate the terms of accommodation”on the middle ground and frame any political engagement in Iraq within the neoconservative principles that defined its mission.29 Occupying Iraq (2003) In an effort to reduce both Iraqi and American casualties the U.S. military rapidly captured Baghdad, disrupting Saddam’s command and control structures. The Iraqi military seemed to crumble in front of the American assault, making the swift strike appear to be a decisive blow. The Battle of Baghdad lasted little more than a week, reinforcing the administration’s assumption that the regime was weak and could be easily removed. In fact, Saddam planned to fight the Coalition, not by using conventional warfare, but by inciting an insurgency against the American invaders. The strongest aspect of Saddam’s internal security structures was never the military, but the country’s intelligence agencies. The regime’s reputation for brutality and its omnipresent surveillance networks created a climate of fear that kept the population subdued. Individuals

27 Other countries that contributed troops to the Coalition included the United Kingdom, Poland, and Australia, and other countries who had committed support to the war were limited to support roles. By 2008 all but the U.S. and U.K. had withdrawn from the Coalition. See Stephen A. Carney, Allied Participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2011). 28 This report discusses to a minor extent to which the Coalition Provisional Authority attempted to engage with tribal authorities, but failed to understand the internal dynamics of tribal politics in the country, and inadequately represented these groups in new political structures such as the Iraqi Governing Council. Catherine Dale, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategies, Approaches, Results, and Issues for Congress,” Congress Research Service, updated March 28, 2008, 13-18, 85-86. 29 Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 52

often reported on others around them either for personal gain or because they themselves were being pressured by the regime.30 This network of informants extended to the country’s mosques, military, businesses, ministries, and even the intelligence agencies themselves. While U.S. war planners envisioned a conventional war that defeated Saddam’s institutions of control, they were not prepared for the long-term insurgency set in motion by the regime’s intelligence apparatuses.31 The Iraqi government brought foreign fighters into the country and trained militias for the explicit purpose of resisting the U.S.32 By fostering this highly nationalistic “cultural refusal” of all foreign influence in the country,33 Saddam prepared the country for a long-term battle that would test the U.S.'s resolve and undermine its authority on the international stage. Once the U.S. was removed from Iraq, Saddam envisioned his rule would continue; however, his insurgency attracted a number of external groups with their own agendas, contributing the creation of a vacuum of authority, and the emergence of a middle ground where the country’s trajectory was altered as these groups engaged one another. After the U.S. removed the Baʿthist government, it created the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which in the first two months struggled to establish control and was characterized by uncertainty and chaos as widespread looting took hold in Baghdad. These developments challenged the U.S.’s dominance and forced the Coalition to impose its vision more forcefully. In May 2003, L. Paul Bremer III arrived in Iraq as the new U.S. official appointed to lead reconstruction efforts in the country. Bremer was chosen for his experience as a diplomat in the Foreign Service and as a counterterror expert as well as for his administrative skills. Most importantly, Bremer was selected to lead the CPA because of his convictions in value of democratization and free markets, making him the perfect neoconservative candidate to execute the CPA’s mission in Iraq.34

30 Joseph Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba‘th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 128. 31 Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion, 212-213. 32 Aifan Sadun al-Issawi, “Interview 6,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 85-86. 33 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, xv. 34 Bremer had served as the Department of State’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism from 1986-1989, and worked with Donald Rumsfeld during in the Ford administration. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle To Build A Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 6-7; George W. Bush, Decision Points, 258. 53

As the administrator of the CPA, Bremer reported only to the president, leaving him with unquestioned power in Iraq. Although the CPA would only govern for 14 months before abruptly handing control to a new interim government in June 2004, it initiated a series of policies that set the course for the country’s immediate history. These orders included de-Ba‘athification, the dissolution of the Iraqi Army, and the complete restructuring of Iraq’s economic and political system. This latter task was taken up by the CPA with the utmost neoconservative zeal. In fact, the majority of staffers within the CPA were members of the Republican Party, not qualified civil servants. Frederick Smith, the Deputy Director of the CPA’s Washington office was quoted as saying that, “The criterion for sending people over there was that they had to have the right political credentials.”35 The ideological nature of the CPA’s mission in Iraq required the clearing of the middle ground of any other visions for Iraq’s future, American or otherwise, so that administration officials could control the narratives of Iraq’s future in Washington, and could dictate to their partners in Iraq how this future would be achieved.36 Rajiv Chandrasekaran observed that “Bremer had come to Iraq to build not just a democracy but a free market. He insisted that economic reform and political reform were intertwined. ‘If we don’t get their economy right, no matter how fancy our political transformation, it won’t work,’ he said.”37 However, Bremer’s long-term economic strategies would do little to to meet the immediate the country’s need for basic services, to the frustration of many Iraqis. Criticisms of his policies as "naive" and overly idealistic did not deter Bremer from setting out to create a new representative democracy in Iraq.38 By establishing these institutions, Bremer believed the population would embrace the ideals of U.S. democracy and unify to create a new nation.39 But the interim government, founded in June 2004, was largely seen as illegitimate—by Iraqis and Westerners alike—because it was created by the CPA and not elected by the people of Iraq. The imposition of new economic and political systems without the

35 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 91. 36 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 5; Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 37 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, 62. 38 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Mistakes Loom Large as Handover Nears,” Washington Post, June 20, 2004. 39 In when asked by Bush why he wanted to go to Iraq, Bremer responded “I believe America has done something great in liberating the Iraqis, sir. And because I think I can help. L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq, 7, 90-100. 54

input of the general population created a sense that they were liberated from one regime to be ruled by another. Beyond a limited number of elites and expatriates who were living in the West during the Saddam regime, Iraqis had no way to participate in the political sphere being created by the CPA.40 In 2003 and 2004 Iraqis started to resist the U.S.’s rule of law causing Iraq’s security and economy to decline. This movement refused to be dictated to by a foreign country and forced the U.S. to recognize its influence on the middle ground by escalating conflict in the country. Because of their marginal position to decisions being made by U.S. officials, elements of the Iraqi population turned to armed conflict as the best way to force the Coalition to accommodate their concerns. The Coalition, on the other hand, entered the country under the assumption that their mission would be widely accepted, but was quickly confronted with the reality that Iraqis were opposed to U.S. hegemony and needed to be persuaded to participate in its political program. U.S. administration officials dismissed the increase of violence in the Summer of 2003 as the actions of “former regime elements” and “dead-enders” lashing out against a new order.41 But the CPA’s erasure of the previous regime’s institutions left a large number of Iraqis without jobs or access to future employment, including 400,000 army personnel who abandoned their posts with their guns in hand.42 These policies overwhelmingly affected Iraq’s Sunnis, further entrenching the belief that the Coalition was marginalizing this population to establish a new Shiʿi political elite. The sweeping assumption from U.S. officials that those fighting the Coalition did not have support from the Iraqi people led the Coalition to ignore a significant influence in the country. This misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq diminished the U.S.’s ability to “dictate the terms” of middle ground and contributed to the growth of resistance to the U.S.’s program in the country. Imposing a Middle Ground (2003-04)

40 United States Army, Field Manual 3-24: Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2006), 5-15. 41 James N. Mattis, “Preparing for Counterinsurgency,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 30; Partial transcript of The Big Story With John Gibson, “How Much of Iraq is Out of Control,” Hosted by John Gibson, aired September 8 2004, on Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/story/how-much-of-iraq-is-out-of-control. 42 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (New York: Random House, 2009), 8-9. 55

The administration assumed wrongly that the Iraqi people uniformly shared their vision for Iraq’s future, leading the administration to conclude that Coalition could continue reconstructing Iraq and building institutions, while simultaneously clearing what it perceived to be its opposition from the middle ground. Because of its misunderstanding of the complex composition of the developing insurgency, the Coalition labeled all of these forces as being associated with the former regime or jihadist elements, legitimizing a harsh response to their actions. Among Iraqis the U.S.’s presence was increasingly perceived to be a military occupation not a democratization effort. While U.S. forces attempted to promote security and create jobs, their actions fed into the insurgency and deterred traditional leaders from cooperating with the Coalition. Although forces on the ground were the first to recognize the signs of an insurgency, Washington’s refusal to accept its presence hindered any effort to counter its influence and promote U.S. projects of development. As Coalition forces and the insurgency came into greater conflict, often violently, the Coalition was forced to recognize the other as sharing the space of the middle ground because neither could impose their own programs, nor could they ignore the other’s influence.43 This change on the middle ground could be seen during the Battle of Fallujah in April 2004, after which Coalition forces were forced to recognize the concerns of the local population. Following the death of four military contractors working for Blackwater USA were killed in Fallujah, the Bush administration ordered forces in the area to take control of the city and reaffirm the Coalition’s authority in the area. The U.S. assault antagonized the Iraqi population, limiting cooperation in projects designed to establish governance, economic development, and government services in al-Anbar Province and elsewhere.44 In an interview in September, 2004, Lieutenant General James Conway, who oversaw the operation, said that “we felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah: that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge.”45 But such the impact of local conditions on the U.S.’s overall mission only became clear to administration officials later when the

43 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 44 The First Battle for Fallujah, initiated on November 7, 2004, was depicted by Arab television networks like al- Jazeera as an overwhelming military assault that was killing civilians and the ruining the city’s infrastructure. “The Occupation Renews Strikes on Fallujah and Powell Remains in a Difficult Position,” Al-Jazeera Arabic, October 4, 2004. 45 Rajiv, Chandrasekaran, “Key General Criticizes April Attack in Fallujah,” Washington Post, September 13, 2004. 56

transitional government called for a halt in the offensive three days later. Conway said that, “we pushed back, saying hey, ‘you couldn’t anticipate that you were going to have Sunni objection to this in the governing body?’ It was pretty short sighted.”46 Balancing the administration’s ideological objectives with the concerns of the CPA, interim government, and Iraqi people frustrated military generals on the ground who felt they were losing control of the conflict. Indeed, their mission became more difficult as violence reached a new heights in April 2004 with conflicts intensifying in al-Anbar, Baghdad, and in the South. The Coalition’s focus on other areas and the emerging threat of sectarianism, however, did little to help U.S. forces in al-Anbar Province. Major Ben Connable, a Marine Corps intelligence officer, said that the 2004 overtures to the tribes were fruitless because security was never established.47 Indeed, the difficulties facing the Coalition were complicated further by the limited number of Coalition forces in Iraq.48 One analysis placed the necessary number of troops needed for an occupation force in Iraq between 250,000-300,000, more than double the current U.S. deployment level of 130,000. Several senior Bush administration officials, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, did not approve of sending more troops to Iraq. They believed that occupying the country should have been easier than removing Saddam, but this notion merely reflected their limited understanding of conditions on the ground and thus the ongoing conflict.49 Generals in Iraq felt that more troops were needed to achieve their objectives in the country, but had no choice except to work with what they had.50 While a larger troop level would enable the Coalition to suppress the insurgency and advance the U.S.’s aims in the country, it would not address the inadequate understanding of the country or improve trust between Iraqis and the Coalition. Whether this lack of trust was a consequence of poor security, as Connable suggests, or because Iraqis did not want another colonizing power in the country, it was a major obstacle to

46 James T. Conway, “U.S. Marine Security and Stability Operations,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 52. 47 Alfred B. Connable, “Intelligence Assessment in Late 2005 and 2006,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 124. 48 Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 49 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, 120-121. 50 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 61. 57

engaging the population and persuading them to accept the U.S.’s efforts on the middle ground and embrace the new Iraqi government fashioned by U.S. neoconservative policies.51 Despite the loss in Fallujah, the Coalition continued advancing its political project by developing local relationships to enhance its influence and to gain access to more intelligence. This information was crucial to finding potential partners and in advancing security and development in al-Anbar. In Fallujah, General Mattis sought to exploit divisions among the city’s tribal leaders and empower those who were willing to work with him, developing local ISF capabilities in the process.52 However, the Coalition’s leverage in the city was limited after the April offensive, and, according to Conway, the “city fathers” who participated in the April ceasefire negotiations were “very heavily influenced by the insurgents that were still there. They had no real authority over the people.”53 Thus insurgent leaders demonstrated their superior ability to persuade the local population to support them, which the Coalition needed to challenge in order to advance its goal of establishing a democratic ally in Iraq. To do this, the Coalition needed to appeal to what it perceived to be the Iraqi population's democratic values and re-create itself—and re-imagine the population—as co-creators of the realities and practices of the middle ground.54 By doing so, the Coalition created a distorted understanding of the local population’s interests that aligned with its own, and provided Iraqis with the sense that they were contributing political developments in the country as its equal. With this goal of increasing Iraqi participation in the U.S.’s political project in mind, Coalition forces started to work with a group of former Baʿthists to create a local force under Iraqi leadership that could combat the U.S.’s opposition and build support for the Coalition efforts. However, the partnership with this group ended when its members were discovered fighting alongside the insurgency. Lieutenant General Conway said that, “We appealed to the honor and nature of the Iraqi army, any number of things, to try to get these guys to, to get the old spirit back, but they just would not—could not—do it.”55 The U.S. military’s assumption that these former officers would share their goals illustrates the limited number of potential partnerships in al-Anbar. Conway’s appeal to the army’s nationalism demonstrates an attempt on

51 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 52 James N. Mattis, “Preparing for Counterinsurgency,” 23-24. 53 James T. Conway, “U.S. Marine Security and Stability Operations,” 52-53. 54 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 55 James T. Conway, “U.S. Marine Security and Stability Operations,” 53. 58

the part of the Coalition to engage in a process of “creative, often expedient, misunderstandings,” to create new meanings on the middle ground. In this case, Conway distorted the ideas of Iraqi nationalism as having “shared meanings” with the U.S.’s political project.56 While some senior officials remained hesitant to cooperate with these groups for fear of undermining the government,57 others saw these forces as potential allies in developing the ISF and legitimizing the new government in the long-term. At the same time as the Coalition entered discussions with militias in Fallujah, it also expanded its military operations in the area, initiating a second assault on Fallujah. In November, Coalition forces pushed insurgents from the confines of the city, and simultaneously began the processes of local engagement and reconstruction. By carrying out projects and distributing solatia (condolence) payments in the city to compensate for property damages and loss of life among civilians, U.S. forces sought to restore Fallujah’s infrastructure and economy.58 This strategy was designed to improve the Coalition’s image and establish a basis of trust in local communities, which was critical to establishing a stable democratic government with the support of the Iraqi people. For the U.S. to achieve its long-term goals, it needed to convince the Iraqi population as a whole to embrace these political institutions and negotiate their own political differences within them. This meant that the Iraqi government needed to take over the payment of claims in the city to build its own legitimacy among Iraqis. However, the new government that took office in May 2005 approached governing very differently from its predecessor, and asserted a greater degree of autonomy from U.S. officials. Consequently, if any payments were ever made in Fallujah, they were limited and mismanaged, making the new Iraqi face of the U.S.’s political project even less appealing than before, especially for the country’s Sunni population.59 During his year-long tenure, the new Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Ja‘afari, allowed Shiʿi militias to grow and infiltrate the ISF. Bing West, a journalist who was embedded with U.S.

56 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 57 Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 150-151. 58 United States Government Accountability Office, “Military Operations: The Department of Defense’s use of Solatia and Condolence Payments in Iraq and Afghanistan,” (Report to Congressional Requesters, Washington D.C., May 2007), 13. 59 Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail, “Five Years On, Fallujah Still in Taters,” Global Policy Forum, April 14 2008 59

forces in Iraq, writes that, “Jaʿafari had failed, condoning an increase in sectarianism and alienating the Sunnis. The Ministry of Interior was a snake pit, the local police in Baghdad were feckless, and the Public Order Battalions were sponsoring anti-Sunni death squads.”60 Even though many Sunnis did not participate in the Coalition’s democratic processes, willingly or otherwise, they could not hide from the realities produced by the January elections. By boycotting the elections, the Anbari population protested the Coalition’s dominance in Iraq, effectively removing itself from participating in a process of accommodation that was perceived to be dictated by the Coalition. Instead the population continued to undertake acts of resistance that forced the U.S. to concede its authority and accommodate the population on its own terms. In order to change the conditions of the middle ground, armed groups targeted those who did participate in the Coalition’s political project, killing and abducting numerous government officials in al-Anbar, including multiple governors. To some Iraqis in al-Anbar, these individuals were illegitimate and did not represent the interests of the population because they were not voted for by a majority of Anbaris and because they relied on the U.S. for support, particularly regarding security.61 The authority of the U.S.’s political project was tied directly to the authority of Iraq’s elected leaders, and their opposition was a major obstacle to the U.S.’s strategic objectives. As the U.S. tried to dictate more cooperative inter-Iraqi relations, which would unify the country and develop support for the institutions it was creating, it encountered a “cultural refusal” of all things associated with the occupation, including the U.S.’s Iraqi partners.62 For success to be possible for the Coalition, it needed be more persuasive to “convert” Iraqis to support its cause and become equal partners in establishing a stable, democratic Iraq.63 The realization that the Coalition needed the support of Iraqis at the local level indicates that the resistance efforts to resist the Coalition were effective in forcing it to recognize its influence on the middle ground. However, the Coalition now needed to persuade members of the insurgency to support rather than oppose its political project. Bringing Iraqis to the Middle Ground (2004-2006)

60 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 109-110. 61 For example, Governor Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani of the Iraqi Islamic Party was the target of 31 assassination attempts since taking office in May 2005. He was often referred to as a government of one by U.S. personnel because of his limited staff, and needed a daily Marine escort to go to his office in downtown Ramadi. Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” 151. 62 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, xv; Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 63 James N. Mattis, “Preparing for Counterinsurgency,” 24; James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words, 5. 60

Despite the growing opposition to the U.S.'s mission in Iraq, Bush was undeterred. After securing the 2004 reelection he was just as confident in the moral justification of the war as he was at the start. In his inaugural speech on January 20, 2005, ten days before the elections in Iraq, he reaffirmed the U.S.’s commitment to supporting “the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”64 The immediate enemy, however, was not tyranny, but an amorphous insurgency, comprised primarily of Iraqis who were committed to resisting foreign occupation. While the mission of creating an ideological ally in the Iraq remained, the Coalition needed a new strategy to create the conditions that would bring insurgents to its manufactured middle ground and work with the Iraqi Government. In August 2004, General George Casey, the new American commander of Coalition forces in Iraq, implemented a classified campaign plan that became the first guiding doctrine for combating Iraq’s insurgency. The strategic framework emphasized reaching out to Sunnis “through coercion and cooptation, in an effort to persuade them of the inevitability of [the Coalition’s] success.”65 The strategy did not concede the U.S.’s overall goal to bring Iraqis and the government together, but it was more accommodating towards insurgents. While earlier in the conflict, generals advocated destroying those who would not work with the Coalition,66 Casey’s plan encouraged the Coalition to leave the door open to members of the insurgency so that they could later integrate themselves into the U.S.’s political project. Thus, the document not change the fact that the U.S. was trying to dictate the future of the country to Iraqis. Rather it created a broader framework for engaging insurgents in an effort to encourage fighters and the government to reconcile their differences and embrace a shared vision for the country. However, for the Coalition’s “inevitable” success to come to fruition, the U.S. needed Iraqis to accept the U.S.’s version of Iraq’s future as their own. To achieve this goal, Iraqis needed to take responsibility for ensuring their own security, and Casey was concerned that Iraqis would become reliant on U.S. troops if they maintained a large presence in the country. For this reason, he favored reducing U.S. troop levels so that a transition to Iraqi power could take place without issue. However, before reducing troop levels

64 George W. Bush, “Inaugural Speech,” (Speech, Washington D.C., January 20, 2005). 65 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, 393. 66 James N. Mattis, “Preparing for Counterinsurgency,” 24 61

would be possible, Casey needed to approve a small scale “surge” at the start of 2005 to expand the size of U.S. advisors to “hasten the development of our ‘capable indigenous partner.’”67 The problem with Casey’s plan was that were Iraqis who still did not support the Coalition and did not want to take part in the government that it was creating, especially after the U.S. withdrew. Instead these insurgent groups, including al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI), sought to frustrate the security situation in al-Anbar province, limiting the Coalition’s influence and its recruiting pool for the ISF. By undertaking these actions, these groups made it so that the U.S. could not ignore their presence on the middle ground, while also refusing the reality that it imposed upon them.68 Due to the tenuous security situation in al-Anbar the local population wanted to take control of their own safety. AQI's violent activity was of great concern to local leaders, as was the presence of Iraqi Army soldiers stationed in the province, who were overwhelmingly representative of Iraq's Shiʿi community. With these threats to the Anbari population, local leaders sought to improve their security, but risked losing their local support if they cooperated with the Coalition or supported its political mission.69 Additionally, because the Coalition did not permit all locals to militarily secure their territories, the population became more vulnerable to AQI’s actions. The Coalition later attempted to capitalize on AQI’s intimidation campaign by showing that this terrorist group was a grave danger to the community by highlighting its brutality and extreme program. According to Colonel Michael Walker, the Marines won over the population because they “were offering security, governance, economy, and al-Qaʿida’s offering a trip back to the Dark Ages.”70 For Walker and his peers, the distinction between U.S. forces was black and white. AQI controlled Iraqis and killed those who did not comply, whereas the Coalition empowered Iraqis and provided them with the opportunity to govern themselves. Though many Iraqis would not have agreed with such a positive portrayal of the Coalition’s role in Iraq, by presenting itself as an accommodating alternative to AQI, the U.S. would eventually persuade

67 George W. Casey, Strategic Reflections, 49. 68 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 69 Shaykhs Ahmad al-Rishawi and Ali Hatim both refer to individuals attempting to discredit them by branding them as American “stooges.” Ahmad Bezia Fteikhan al-Rishawi, “Interview 3,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 45; Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 115. 70 Michael M. Walker, “The Indirect Approach: Engaging the Tribes,” 71-72. 62

more Iraqis to participate in its political project and enter a process of accommodating both the Coalition and the Iraqi government on the middle ground. The Coalition’s effort to engage local communities started to gain traction in 2005 when the Albu Mahal tribe in the western city of al-Qaim, sought assistance in its fight against AQI. As was noted in chapter one, the Albu Mahal and several smaller tribes appealed to the interests of foreign powers in the country to achieve their local objectives of establishing their political dominance in the city. From the Coalition’s perspective, the Albu Mahal took the initiative to mobilize against AQI, and take ownership of their security. This “expedient” and spurious assumption of the local situation made the two convenient partners with a shared goal of clearing AQI's influence from the middle ground. Bringing the Albu Mahal to support the Coalition’s program was a tipping point in the conflict, and an indicator that it was possible to win over tribal support by appealing to a group’s interests, which the Coalition often perceived to be aligned in some way with its own.71 Since AQI asserted itself as the dominant member of the insurgency in late 2004, its violent methods contributed to a new atmosphere of fear and incited resentment throughout the province. Starting in May 2005 a series of back-door communications between insurgent groups and the U.S. Coalition began, which led to a critical meeting on November 28, 2005. In these meetings the Coalition promised that it would eventually withdraw from the province’s major urban areas, in exchange for these groups cooperating with the Iraqi government in promoting the area’s stability.72 The meeting created the al-Anbar Security Council, which, brought insurgent leaders and the government together on the middle ground with a shared goal of fighting AQI. While an equal relationship between these Iraqi groups and the Coalition forces appeared to indicate that the country could unify in order to create a more stable Iraq, without the U.S. to mediate the terms of this manufactured middle ground the relationship would not last. Even after the Security Council, without U.S. assistance, provided security for the December 2005 elections in al-Anbar and brought a new level of calm to the province, the central government did not trust these former insurgents. Baghdad was not willing to arm or fund this group and limited the amount of support going into the province. For example, the Iraqi

71 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 72 James L. Williams, “Setting the Conditions for a Turn,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 115. 63

minister of defense reportedly did not see this as a politically opportune moment to allow the Coalition to send additional forces to the province to build on this progress.73 Regardless of Baghdad’s motivations, its actions perpetuated the idea that the government did not care about the rural province, and left the people of al-Anbar more vulnerable to AQI’s violence. In 2005, al-Anbar accounted for 40 percent of U.S. casualties and only 20 percent of American deployments in the country. The improvement in the province’s security, as seen in the December elections, encouraged General Casey to reduce U.S. troop levels, forcing the Anbar Security Council and ISF to take greater responsibility for al-Anbar’s security. Following this announcement, AQI quickly reasserted its power by launching a new intimidation campaign. While Casey believed that lowering troop levels forced Iraqis to take greater responsibility for the country, in reality this tactic enabled AQI and others to “dictate the terms of accommodation” to Iraq’s Sunni community.74 The group escalated its intimidation efforts in early 2006, pushing many of al-Anbar’s local leaders out of the country, clearing the area of all oppositional voices that could have influenced the population to resist AQI’s state project. In all, Casey’s troop reduction disrupted the progress being made to dictate the terms of accommodation between Iraqi groups and the government on the U.S.’s manufactured middle ground. The wave of renewed violence, in al-Anbar and elsewhere, once again limited the amount of support the Coalition received at the local level. AQI’s increased influence in shaping realities in the shared space of the middle ground was a direct threat to the neoconservative vision for Iraq’s future that defined the U.S.’s mission in the country. The unwillingness of the two powers to alter their goals made a conflict between them inevitable. For the U.S. to maintain its progress and continue persuading more Iraqis to participate in its manufactured middle ground, the Coalition needed to clear AQI from the middle ground and continue building the institutional capacity of its Iraqi partners to ensure any successes would last beyond a future U.S. withdrawal. Hastening the Development of Our “Capable Indigenous Partner” (2006) In order to fully make the transition to Iraqi control, the long neglected local police forces needed to be trained so they could handle local security concerns as U.S. forces planned to

73 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 87. 74 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x, xv. 64

decrease troop levels from 155,000 in 2005 to 133,000 by years end.75 At this point most security operations in al-Anbar were conducted by the army, as the Iraqi Police was still undermanned and untrained. It would be several months before any police appeared in Iraq, let alone al-Anbar, and the process of developing policing capabilities in al-Anbar specifically was not expected to be complete until March 2007.76 But with AQI on the upswing and the tribes on the back-foot, it seemed unlikely the Coalition could create a new security infrastructure in the province at the beginning of 2006. Nevertheless, placing Iraqis at the front of the counter insurgency effort was the only strategy that could guarantee U.S. forces would not maintain a long-term presence in the country. Additionally, expanding the ISF provided another mechanism to integrate Iraqis into the government structures, increasing the number of Iraqis contributing to the U.S.’s political goals.77 But there was a major problem with this transition plan: the Iraqi government was highly inefficient when spending its own funds, particularly with regard to the ISF.78 The central government was still learning bureaucratic functions from their Department of State counterparts, and its evident deficiencies made establishing an inclusive, democratic state even more elusive. In al-Anbar the U.S. military was forced to lobby the Iraqi government for support to be brought to local communities. “We have in many cases become the champion of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police,” Major General Zilmer, the Commanding General of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, said. “We advocate for them, we fight many of the fights for them in Baghdad, whether that’s Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior. We become the advocates for them, and in may cases, when the Ministry of Interior or Defense fail to provide sustainment.”79 Without the U.S.’s financial and institutional support, the Iraqi government would have struggled to meet the country’s reconstruction and security needs. Similarly, without the U.S.’s lobbying efforts, services in al-Anbar would have broken down.80 Baghdad’s failure to provide basic

75 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 107. 76 Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” 143. 77 William M. Jurney, “Counterinsurgency in Central Ramadi, Part I,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 188. 78 According to the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction 2007 corruption was referred to as a “second insurgency.” Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., “SIGIR Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report to the United States Congress,” Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, July 30, 2007, 9, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a509376.pdf. 79 Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” 151. 80 R. Jeffrey Smith, “The Failed Reconstruction of Iraq,” The Atlantic, March 15, 2013. 65

services and meet the population’s needs only contributed to further mistrust towards the central government. Even a high-ranking Baʿthist general admitted that, “Americans take better care of the people than [the government].”81 The conditions of this shared space between the Anbari population and the government did not reflect the inclusive democratic environment envisioned by U.S. neoconservative officials. Rather, because these disparate parties remained largely opposed to one another, and could not dominate this political space, their cooperation largely came at the urging of the Coalition, indicating that inter-Iraqi relations on the U.S.’s manufactured middle ground would not be as cooperative as the administration envisioned and that the U.S. could not dictate the terms of accommodation between these two parties. The newly elected Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, did little to improve the government’s image or efficiency. His tenure has been criticized for worsening sectarian relations in the country and furthering corruption.82 General Casey expressed concern to his staff that Iraqi politicians were not committed to improving security or reining in Shiʿi death squads, which remained active in the south.83 At this time, Coalition forces withdrew from Baghdad in the belief that the security situation would improve with a lighter U.S. footprint. Instead, General Casey’s strategy took away from the Coalition’s authority in the country, enabling further sectarian violence in Baghdad and bolder actions by AQI. These developments fed into the atmosphere of fear being created by AQI in al-Anbar, and limited the number of Iraqis who were willing to openly cooperate with the Coalition or resist the jihadist group, demonstrating that AQI maintained its ability to influence local realities in spite of efforts to clear it from the middle ground. This is not to say that AQI operated unopposed in areas like al-Anbar. In the summer of 2006, an unknown group of fighters started retaliating against AQI using their tactics of brutality and intimidation. After a string of AQI members were assassinated, U.S. military officers speculated a network of local leaders became frustrated with AQI’s terror, and were seeking retribution under the name Thawār al-Anbar (Revolutionaries of al-Anbar). Captain Travis Patriquin, who was in charge of tribal engagement in Ramadi, writes in a report that the group

81 Jasim Muhammad Salih Habib, “Interview 17,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 258. 82 Al-Maliki entered office in May 2006 and was elected by a one vote margin in the national assembly. Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 97. 83 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 163. 66

“is a problem self-created by al-Qaʿida,” and that its attacks against AQI would continue until security was reestablished and the Iraqi police became established. “Coupled with [Coalition forces] involvement, [Thawār al-Anbar] vigilante action is a valuable tool for gaining momentum in stagnant areas.”84 Patriquin clearly interpreted this group’s activity as an indicator that Iraqis were ready to cooperate with the Coalition and join the ISF. However, there is no evidence to support Patriquin’s assumption that this group wanted to work with the Coalition, and U.S. officials “misinterpret[ed] and distort[ed]” this group’s motivations to fit within their long-term goals. Through such expedient misunderstandings, resulting from poor assumptions about the group, the Coalition found another partner in the fight against AQI, and perhaps in advancing its political project in al-Anbar.85 Throughout 2006, the Coalition continued to engage the local population throughout al- Anbar, where U.S. forces did not adhere to Casey's strategy of a lighter footprint. In the summer of 2006 this strategic decision would pay off, when the Coalition opened its first police station in the Jazira area of Ramadi.86 The opening of the station signaled that working with the Coalition was becoming more acceptable as AQI’s violence pushed the population to off set its influence by partnering with the Coalition and appealing to its political objectives. New police stations were critical to Colonel MacFarland’s “inkblot strategy” in the Ramadi, from which joint U.S.- Iraqi teams conducted patrols to spread their influence and engage the population.87 Following Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, the Coalition augmented its presence in Ramadi by amplifying its patrols in the city to challenge AQI’s influence, support the elected government, and win over the local population. But the limited number of Iraqis in the ISF meant the U.S. needed to attract more recruits to participate in its political program and support establishing a fully independent, Iraqi security structure. Following a bombing on the Jazira police station and the assassination of Shaykh Khalid Araq al-Ataymi on August 21 recruiting increased dramatically. Macfarland said that with greater cooperation from the shaykhs, police recruiting rapidly increased “from 20 to 30 a month

84 William Doyle, A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq (New York: Nal Caliber, 2011), Kindle book position 1723. 85 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 86 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 101. 87 Kurtis P. Wheeler, “Introduction,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 12. 67

to routinely 700 guys will show up.”88 Although there was not a firm basis of trust between the Coalition and the tribal community, Anbaris were pushed towards this new partnership by AQI’s indiscriminate violence that threatened their security. By positioning itself in opposition to AQI instead of imposing itself upon the population, the Coalition expanded the number of Iraqis who were willing to participate in its political project. This set of developments marked a major shift on the middle ground, and enabled the U.S. to have a larger role in the province, even though its local partners did not share its vision for Iraq’s future. On September 16, a group of tribal shaykhs declared open war on AQI in partnership with the Coalition, and dubbed themselves the Anbar Awakening.89 However, the Awakening would pose a new problem for the Coalition. Its leader Abd al-Sattar, the leading shaykh of the Albu Risha, accused the elected provincial government to be illegitimate because of its inefficiency and corruption. Although the governor was a “one-man band,” the Coalition had no way of removing him, even if it wanted to.90 Indeed, Bing West observed that unlike the military, U.S. diplomats did not dismiss politicians who were corrupt or inefficient. “The diplomats didn’t approach the dystrophic Iraqi ministries with the moral authority or outrage necessary to demand the removal of harmful officials.”91 Similarly the military was not allowed to interfere so heavy handedly in politics. Because of the governor’s status as an elected official, the Coalition was invested in him as the province’s executive official. Although U.S. officials may have disagreed with their Iraqi counterparts, they felt that these figures needed to be respected as country’s chosen representatives through the democratic process that the Coalition created. By degrading the authority of any elected official, Americans risked undermining their own efforts by feeding into the existing divisions among its Iraqi partners. However, the Coalition’s maintenance of its democratic institutions ensured that the Awakening could later renegotiate its place on the manufactured middle ground by integrating itself into the U.S.’s political project. And so, when Abd al-Sattar and other shaykhs went to Baghdad to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, U.S. officials saw the delegation as undermining the political project as

88 Sean B. Macfarland, “Partnering with the Tribes in Ramadi,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 178. 89 Macfarland and members of his staff attended the signing of their “manifesto,” which Macfarland compared to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in terms of its historical significance. Sean B. Macfarland, “Partnering with the Tribes in Ramadi,” 182. 90 Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” 145. 91 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 108. 68

a whole.92 Shaykh Wissam al-Hardan, one of Abd al-Sattar’s deputies, stated that after returning from Baghdad the American commander in al-Anbar refused to provide any further support to the Awakening.93 And so, while the Coalition was not willing to intervene in the case of government officials, it was perfectly prepared to "coerce" other Iraqis in order to dissuade them from challenging the U.S.’s larger political project. Even though the Awakening-Coalition partnership was succeeding in clearing AQI from the middle ground, the U.S. would prioritize defending the institutions most critical to preserving its interests in the country. The real question at the time was whether or not the U.S.’s efforts to dictate “the terms of accommodation” between these different parties to cooperate in establishing a stable, democratic Iraq would have a lasting impact even after the Coalition withdrew from Iraq.94 As the U.S. attempted to control the realities produced on the middle ground between these groups, it could not prevent the government or the tribes from pursuing their own interests. Reengineering a Country (2007-2011) While progress was being made in al-Anbar to curtail the influence of AQI with the help of the Awakening, major obstacles were preventing the U.S. from establishing an ideological ally in the region. Most critically, the Iraqi government was inefficient and had not earned the trust of the population. General David Petraeus said as much in his confirmation hearing to replace General Casey as the commander of Coalition forces in Iraq January 7, 2007. His new counterinsurgency doctrine, Field Manual 3-24, outlined how the Coalition needed to engage with the local population and develop the Iraqi government’s institutional capabilities. In order to meet the U.S.’s goal of creating a long-standing ally in promoting democracy in the region, the Coalition needed to first ensure that the state could meet the population’s needs sufficiently and independently. Only when this was achieved would the population begin to trust the new government and engage with it on the U.S.’s manufactured middle ground by participating in democratic processes. Within the U.S.’s neoconservative vision, democratization would cause

92 General Zilmer said that “in some cases where it got them an immediate gratification, it was something that was maybe good, but long-term it just undermines that ability of the governor to be the spokesman, if you will, for the province… When you now allow these people to go straight to the top, you marginalize the capacity of the governor.” Richard C. Zilmer, “The Shift to Counterinsurgency,” 150. 93 Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aethawi, “Interview 4,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. II: Iraqi Perspectives, eds. Gary Montgomery and Timothy Williams (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 60. 94 Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 69

Iraq’s various communities and different ideological groups to adjust their differences by participating in the creation of a new unified and stable reality. In order to bring Petraeus's new strategy into fruition, and bring more Iraqis to participate on the manufactured middle ground, the Coalition needed to increase its troop presence to improve the security situation throughout Iraq, undertake reconstruction projects, and train and advise their Iraqi civilian and military counterparts. Yet Prime Minister al-Maliki was uncomfortable with this proposed U.S. “surge” and needed to be convinced. He feared the troop increase would fuel the insurgency, particularly among the Shiʿi population, leading him to lose his support or even his removal from office.95 In spite of these concerns, over the next several months U.S. forces in Iraq increased to 166,300,96 reminding al-Maliki that he could not prevent U.S. officials from taking actions in Iraq that secured their interests, even if they put him, the leader of the country, at risk. The Coalition’s highly theoretical methodology laid out in Field Manual 3-24 illustrated how the Coalition would support Iraqi institutions like the ISF by turning over responsibility wherever and whenever appropriate… As the security, governing, and economic capacity of the host nation increases, the need for foreign assistance is reduced. At this stage, the host nation has established (or re-established) the requisite systems needed to provide effective and stable government that supports and sustains the rule of law. The government secures its citizens continuously, sustains and builds legitimacy through effective government… and is able to manage and incrementally meet the expectations of the nation’s entire population.97

The doctrine set a road map for how the Coalition's new forces would serve to improve security and strengthen Iraqi institutions in an effort to develop support for the U.S.'s project and the institutions it created. By bringing the Iraqi people together under a controlled set of conditions on the middle ground the Coalition could amplify the legitimacy of the Iraqi government and withdraw its own presence. The most difficult aspect of this process would be forcing insurgent groups to accept the the government's structure and adapt their stated aims into political platforms that could compete for influence within this system. The new counterterrorism

95 Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 42-43. 96 “Chart: U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq,” CNN, October 21, 2011, https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/world/meast/chart- us-troops-iraq/index.html. 97 United States Army, Field Manual 3-24: Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2006), 5-2. 70

document laid out how the Coalition intended to leave Iraq as an independent and stable country. But the U.S.’s timeline was mostly dictated by factors in Washington and not Baghdad.98 The Iraqi capital was the focus of the surge because a victory there would bring greater legitimacy to the Iraqi government. In al-Anbar before new troops arrived, conditions already started to improve thanks in part to the partnership with tribal shaykhs.99 To Brigadier General Reist, the Deputy Commanding General in al-Anbar, the most significant change were signs of economic growth. He argued that if the economy continued to to decline and if there were no development projects, Iraqis would return to working with the insurgency as a form of employment. 100 Indeed, the Coalition’s reconstruction projects were critical to providing employment and improving the general state of living in cities and villages. With such services, the Coalition and the Iraqi government appealed to the population’s greatest concerns, encouraging more Iraqis to engage with the government. By spring 2007, even the areas in al- Anbar and Baghdad that were causing the the most problems were turning around, as instances of violence decreased and support for the government increased. Although, actual support for the U.S. remained low, support for the institutions that the Coalition was building were on the rise, and the U.S.’s goals were gradually being achieved. Reconstruction efforts, however, were not as advanced in al-Anbar province, particularly regarding fuel and power. Most households only received six hours of electricity from the national grid a day, and water systems were poorly maintained, and schools, post offices, and other government centers still needed to be repaired or rebuilt.101 While U.S. officials were trying to assist their Iraqi counterparts, there was a steep learning curve for Iraq's new bureaucrats. Brigadier General Post, Reist’s successor as the deputy commanding general in al- Anbar, said that “what we were trying to do was reengineer 40 years of mindset of how things

98 The new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, writes in his memoir that he “believed the only way to buy time for the surge, ironically, was to hold out hope of beginning to end it,” as congressional leaders called for an end to U.S. involvement in the country. Robert M. Gates, Duty, 50. 99 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 74-75; In Fallujah the Iraqi Army was up to 20,000 troops from 2,500 in February, and the Coalition was anticipating to add another 10,000 police officers over the next several months. Stephen T. Johnson, “Targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq,” 102. 100 David G. Reist, “Enabling the Awakening, Part I,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 158. 101 Martin Post, “Transition to Iraqi Control, Part II,” in Al-Anbar Awakening, Vol. I: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, eds. Timothy S. McWilliams and Kurtis P. Wheeler (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), 258. 71

work.”102 Post argued that the centralized nature of the Saddam era prevented Iraqis from learning administrative skills. While Post was optimistic that Iraqis had the drive to develop these abilities and improve governance in the country, his statement highlights a limited U.S. understanding of Iraq and its complexities, which often frustrated the Coalition’s efforts throughout the war. The distorted perception that Iraqis either shared the same goals as the Coalition or did not diminished the political and social complexities that drove Iraqis to engage in the U.S.’s political project. These Iraqi factors were significant when considering the political reasons for why the Sunni-majority al-Anbar province was a lower priority for the Shiʿi- dominated national government, and the fears of marginalization in the province. These regional and sectarian tensions illustrate the U.S.’s inability to control an inter- Iraqi middle ground in 2008 when U.S. troops started withdrawing from the country and Barack Obama was elected as the new American president. The vision for an inclusive, stable, democracy reigning in Iraq was overshadowed by a new reality that resulted from several years of sectarian conflict, terrorism, and occupation. And as Obama looked to shift the U.S.’s focus to Afghanistan, applying the Coalition’s successes of the surge, local leaders in al-Anbar were not optimistic about a reduced U.S. presence. In a 2009 interview, Shaykh Ali Hatem said that, Anbar is much more volatile than Afghanistan. Considering the undercurrent of animosity that exists among various entities, the only reason it is contained right now is because of [the U.S.’s] presence. It’s like a car. You lift your foot off of the accelerator, and the vehicle dies.103

Simillarly, Shaykh Abd al-Sattar told Colonel Macfarland and Lieutenant Colonel Jurney that the Coalition was the only reason al-Anbar was receiving support from Baghdad.104 Internal squabbles between the provincial powers and the capital were seen by some U.S. officials as a return to normalcy, but these developments should have raised red flags. While the Coalition could build institutions and teach government officials to administer them in a way that benefits the Iraqi population, it was not able to manufacture trust between Iraqis. While the U.S. did create the conditions for the government and the Sunni population in provinces like al-Anbar to meet on the middle ground and recognize one another as co-creators on the middle ground, the

102 Martin Post, “Transition to Iraqi Control, Part II,” 259. 103 Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” 119. 104 Bing West, The Strongest Tribe, 244. 72

world they created together was not democratic or stable. In fact, their relationship was often fraught with conflict. U.S. commanders were right to be concerned about Iraqis relying on their help. When the U.S. completed its troop withdrawals in 2011, there was no longer a major power in the country to “dictate the terms of accommodation” to Iraq’s political groups, with the result being a return to sectarian tensions and an absence of development in Sunni-majority provinces. The Coalition had faith that the democratic institutions it built had the potential to ensure stability and development in Iraq if the people committed themselves to them, but not all Iraqis were so optimistic. Shaykh Ali Hatim warned that “the true test right now for the Americans is to leave Iraq standing on its own feet, not lying on its back.”105 But to the Americans, the question was whether or not the Iraqis would continue cooperating “to govern themselves justly and provide [their own] security” with the institutions the Coalition provided them.106 In the period that followed the U.S. withdrawal, the political reality in Iraq quickly deviated from the Bush administration’s ideal outcome, as various parties continued to fight for control of Iraq’s future, both within and outside of the institutions designed by the Coalition. But with this competition for absolute control in Iraq ongoing, there remained a plethora of political powers, none of which could fill the country’s vacuum of authority because they did not hold positions of hegemony.

105 Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman, “Interview 7,” 114. 106 National Security Council, “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” (National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., November 2005), 3. 73

Chapter Three The Management of the Middle Ground: The Jihadist State Project in Iraq

One week after the devastating hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan on November 11, 2005, Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of the al-Qaʿida in Iraq group, released a lengthy statement that both claimed credit for the attacks and attempted to justify them. He argued that the Jordanian government was an apostate regime and a legitimate military target, but he did not address the fact that the attack targeted large gatherings of civilians. The contradiction between Zarqawi’s rhetoric and actions was not well received by Jordanian society or by other senior jihadists. For al-Qaʿida’s leadership the pitfalls of such a violent strategy were abundantly clear, and they were concerned their young partner would hinder their larger goals in Iraq and the greater Middle East.1 Already by July 2005 tensions between Zarqawi and al-Qaʿida were mounting, when Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy and al-Qaʿida’s second highest figure, sent a letter to Zarqawi, attempting to explain to Zarqawi that the mujahid movement would not achieve its goals while isolated from public support. He argued that “if we look at the two short- term goals, which are removing the Americans and establishing an Islamic [emirate] in Iraq, or a caliphate if possible, then, we will see that the strongest weapon which the [mujahidin] enjoy… is popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries.”2 While Zarqawi shared the vision of establishing an Islamic State, he had a radically different perspective on how to reach this goal. Zarqawi was unconvinced of the need to rely on the public at large, which he saw as domesticated and ignorant of the ways of war.3 Instead, Zarqawi, and others in his circle, sought to create a state first, then gain then support of the masses.4 These two approaches were fundamentally opposed to one another, and partially explain Zarqawi’s willingness to execute the November 9th operations in Amman. Through violence, he

1 Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, “A Taste of You the Noble, the Honorable,” in Collections of the Fifth Shining Work Plan (Shabakat al-Baraaq al-Islamiya, 2006), 468-469. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi,” Combating Terrorism Center: Harmony Project (2005), 4. 3 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, trans. William McCants (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 72-73. 4 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 52. 74

could erode the credibility of “un-Islamic” regimes and win support for his cause. But to al- Qaʿida’s leadership, such militarism risked undermining the movement altogether. Despite these criticisms, Zarqawi continued to act independently from al-Qaʿida’s leadership, and managed to establish an extensive following and the organizational capacity to withstand major setbacks in Iraq without the public outreach that al-Qaʿida’s leaders repeatedly called for. Indeed Zarqawi’s group used Iraq as the testing ground for their violent strategy to build an Islamic state. However, these tactics hampered the group’s support in the public sphere, forcing it into periods of dormancy, when the group scaled back its operations to recalibrate its strategy. Despite the difficulties it faced, the organization maintained its ambitions to develop a state project, and would eventually challenge existing government structures in Iraq and across the region. After an extensive period of trial and error, the group was able to exploit the weakness of competing authorities in Iraq and advance its idealistic vision of a state founded on Islamic principles. This chapter argues that by learning from its strategic failures and successes, al-Qaʿida in Iraq was able to adjust and improve its approach in the country, especially when building relationships in the country, enabling it to maintain and expand its influence on the middle ground and shape the political realities in Iraq. By recalibrating its strategy and improving its local relationships the group extended its power in new ways, culminating in its seizure of territory and assertion of hegemony in 2014. Before this crucial moment in its history, the group had long been dismissed in Iraq and by Western powers as an insurgent, terrorist network. However, by building upon Pekka Hämäläinen’s notion of reversed colonialism, this chapter will explore the group’s attempt to “expand, dictate, and prosper” through its state project.5 The group experienced a number of obstacles to its political vision, many of them resulted from the organization’s domineering approach to interacting with other groups in Iraq. Al-Qaʿida in Iraq’s need to “dictate the terms of accommodation,” on what Richard White refers to as the “middle ground,” where multiple worlds met to create a new reality that was mutually comprehensible, isolated it from a position of influence.6 Thus in order to advance its state project, the group emphasized local partnerships with local Iraqis instead of coercing them. But because the group

5 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 1. 6 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650—1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), x, xv. 75

did not clear its opposition or its competitors entirely from the middle ground, it was not able to fill the vacuum of authority in Iraq with an Islamic State. This chapter starts with the organization’s evolution from Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi’s entrance into the Islamist community to the group’s seizure of Fallujah in early 2014. The discussion that follows will emphasize the organization’s strategy, and particularly how it approached the application of violence and the development of relationships with the public and other militant groups. There are six sections in this chapter, each focusing on a key period in the group’s development. The first provides a biography of Zarqawi, discussing the greatest influences on him and their impact on his strategy in Iraq. The next section follows the development of Zarqawi’s organization in Iraq from his arrival in the country in 2002 to the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004. This is followed by a discussion of the group’s relationship with other resistance groups until Zarqawi’s death in 2006. The chapter then examines the group’s transformation from al-Qaʿida in Iraq to the Islamic State of Iraq, and the way the organization reduced its public presence and changed its tactics between 2007-2010. This will be followed by a discussion on the changes within the group’s internal structure. The final section shows how the group took advantage of political instability in the region after 2011 to establish a state. This chapter draws on a number of jihadist documents including internal letters and records that were intercepted or seized by Coalition forces in Iraq and the wider Middle East, as well as speeches, biographies, and other texts released online through jihadist forums by al- Qaʿida in Iraq and other groups. With these materials this chapter illustrates how the group’s leadership approached problems in Iraq, such as tactical approaches and internal divisions. While in previous chapters I have referred to this group as al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI) or later the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), in this chapter I will use the various names used by this organization to show its development. Consequently, a distinction needs to be made between al-Qaʿida (AQ) and AQI. When referring to the former, I am referring to the group’s leadership, located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whereas AQI is used exclusively to refer to the organization’s affiliate in Iraq, founded by Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi. Additionally, this chapter will not focus exclusively on the events that took place in al-Anbar province, but will also include important events from across the country that are crucial to understanding the organization’s goals and strategy. Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi (1966-2002) 76

Born Ahmad Fadal Nazil al-Khalayeh in 1966 in the industrial town of Zarqa (24 km northeast of Amman) to a working class family, Zarqawi belonged to the respectable, bedouin Bani Hassan tribe. Despite the privileges this affiliation afforded him, Zarqawi dropped out of high school and immersed himself in the world of crime. At his mother’s behest, Zarqawi became more involved in the local mosque. He took to religion zealously, and in 1989 volunteered to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Army.7 He arrived after the Soviets left the country, but managed to gain some battlefield experience during his four years in the country. Although Zarqawi tried to distance himself from his delinquent past and tribal heritage, this period shaped Zarqawi’s reputation as a “tough guy” and gave him a greater degree of insight when later recruiting from Iraq’s tribal community.8 His understanding of these two worlds was critical to the development and the expansion of AQI in the early 2000s. After returning to Jordan in 1993 Zarqawi reconnected with a Palestinian Jordanian scholar, who he met in Peshawar, Pakistan: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Born in Nablus as ʿIsam al-Barqawi, al-Maqdisi lived most of his life in Jordan, and became deeply involved in religious studies and developed a reputation as a hard-liner. His two crucial contributions to jihadist thought include his interpretation of al-walʾa wa-lʾbaraʾa (association and dissociation), and his writing on democracy as a religion. Al-Maqdisi took a new approach to the concept — which states that Muslims should remain loyal to Islam, and disavow all things un-Islamic—to argue that Muslims should reject leaders who do not impose a strict version of shariʿa.9 Al- Maqdisi later expanded upon this line of thinking in his book Democracy is a Religion, which argued that because democratic systems place human will above God’s they are not compatible with Islam.10 These writings and others significantly influenced the intellectual trajectory of the jihadist movement as well as al-Maqdisi’s mentee Zarqawi. Al-Maqdisi’s writings later provided the scholarly grounds for AQI’s vehement opposition to the development of electoral systems in Iraq. Indeed, the group applied al-Maqdisi’s argument of association and dissociation to assert

7 Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Doubleday, 2015), 50-51. 8 Zarqawi went to great lengths to atone for his previous life, and while in prison cut off the top layer of skin to remove a tattoo because it was un-Islamic. Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 26. 9 For al-Maqdisi’s discussions on these two concepts see Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Millat Ibrahim (Iraq: Minbar al-tawhid wa’l-jihad, 1984); and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, al-Dimuqratiyya Din (Iraq: Minbar al-tawhid wa’l- jihad). 10 Brian F. Fishman, The Master Plan: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2016), 6. 77

itself as the only legitimate power in Iraq, and that Muslims should reject all other claims of authority because they did not represent Islamic principles. While Zarqawi absorbed these lessons from al-Maqdisi, he did not defer to him on all matters. In fact, while the two were imprisoned in the 1990s, Zarqawi eventually became the leader of the installation's incarcerated Islamists because of his battlefield credentials, which al-Maqdisi did not have.11 After being released by a general amnesty in 1999, Zarqawi traveled to Pakistan in hopes of joining the ongoing fight in Chechnya against the Russians. However, he was unable to make the journey due to developments in the conflict zone.12 In Pakistan, his visa was nearing its expiration, and Zarqawi was given a choice by the Pakistani security service to be deported back to Jordan, or leave the country on his own. Zarqawi decided to travel to Afghanistan, and use his connections in the country to meet with the leader of AQ, Osama bin Laden.13 However, the ideological clarity that he enjoyed during his previous time in Afghanistan did not transfer to the complex political landscape that had developed between the more nationalist minded Taliban and the Afghan Arabs.14 For several reasons Bin Laden was wary about meeting with the Jordanian, particularly because of Zarqawi’s more extreme views.15 At the behest of Sayf al-Adl, then AQ’s intelligence chief in Afghanistan, Bin Laden met with the Jordanian,16 leading to a tacit partnership between the two that would make a profound impact on the course of the larger jihadist movement in the Middle East.

11 The two were arrested in 1993 for an attack on an Israeli border crossing that was foiled by the Jordanian intelligence services. Joas Wagemakers points out that this group was often misidentified as Bayʿat al-Imam, a name that likely was given to them by Jordan’s intelligence services. Additionally, Wagemakers argues that this group was not jihadist nor terroristic in nature, in the sense that it was not participating in an active conflict or conducting terror operations. Rather, the primary function of this loose association of Jordanian Islamists was education and proselytization. Joas Wagemakers, “A Terrorist Organization that Never Was: The Jordanian ‘Bayʿat al-Imam’ Group,” The Middle East Journal 68, no. 1 (Winter 2014), 63-65. 12 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 65. 13 Sayf al-Adl, My Experiences with Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi (Iraq: Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad), 3, 5. 14 There were a range of perspectives on the Taliban within the Arab jihadist community, which more extreme factions believed constituted apostasy. Zarqawi fit squarely into this group, while Osama bin Laden and others were willing to cooperate with the Taliban and even defended the group vociferously. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 13; For a detailed account of the pros and cons of working alongside the Taliban see Abu Musʿab al-Suri, “Afghanistan, The Taliban, and the Battle for Islam Today,” (Harmony Document AFGP-2002-602383). 15 Additionally, Zarqawi’s strong ties to al-Maqdisi—an outspoken critic of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—had the potential to bring more pressure to al-Qaʿida’s operations. Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 66. 16 Sayf al-Adl, My Experiences with Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, 5; Sayf al-Adl has provided the most detailed account of Zarqawi’s life, which can be found in the English translation of Fu’ad al-Husayn, “Zarqawi: The Second Generation of al-Qaeda,” Blogspot, accessed January 20, 2019, http://atc2005.blogspot.com/2006/06/al-zarqawi- second-generation-of-al.html. 78

Zarqawi arrived at a key juncture in al-Qaeda’s own development, as the group attempted to reposition itself regionally and increase its recruitment from the Levant—a geographical region that includes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. Although the group historically received low numbers from this region, there appears to have been growing rivalry between jihadist organizations in Afghanistan over recruits. According to Sayf al-Adl, Zarqawi’s arrival presented AQ with the opportunity to challenge its competitors and expand its brand into the Levant.17 Zarqawi established a small camp near the city of Herat, Afghanistan close to the Iranian border with extensive financial and logistical support from AQ. But because Zarqawi’s new Jund al- Sham group was officially unaffiliated with the larger organization, he was able to operate free from AQ’s tactical restraints.18 AQ was much more conservative in its strategic approach, and preferred to remove foreign powers from Muslim lands before challenging local regimes, all the while building the public support necessary to eventually declare a state.19 Without these restraints, Zarqawi was free to act independently and develop his own strategy for establishing a state.20 Although Zarqawi was independent from AQ while in Afghanistan, he was still influenced by the scholars and ideologues that surrounded him. Many of Zarqawi’s views can be attributed to al-Maqdisi, but the works of several other scholars equally shaped his beliefs. Of these influences, Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir had the largest impact on Zarqawi’s views, convincing him to embrace martyrdom operations and a sectarian outlook.21 Al-Muhajir even lectured at Zarqawi’s Herat camp, and his book, Jurisprudence of Jihad, is used extensively by

17 The primary challenge to AQ’s expansion was Abu Musʿab al-Suri, a veteran jihadist who fought against the Asad regime in the 1970s and 80s. Brian Fishman, “Revisiting the History of al-Qaʿida’s Original Meeting with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” CTC Sentinel 9, no. 11 (October 2016), 30; For a history of the conflict between Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and Hafez al-Asad see Raphael Lefevre, Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Sayf al-Adl, My Experiences with Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, 5. 18 Brian Fishman, “Revisiting the History of al-Qaʿida’s Original Meeting with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” CTC Sentinel, 31; Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 67-68. 19 William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse (New York: Picador, 2015) 7-8. 20 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 53; Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 89-91; Assaf Moghadam, Nexus of Global Jihad: Understanding Cooperation Among Terrorist Actors (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 153. 21 Other scholars that have influenced Zarqawi include Abu Basir al-Tartusi, one of the primary Salafi opinion- makers of the jihadist movement, and ʿAbd al-Qadir bin Abd al-Aziz, a prolific writer whose works have been used extensively in training camps throughout the region. Cole Bunzel “Understating Zarqawi,” Jihadica, accessed January 9, 2019; Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 67. 79

jihadist groups globally, including the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.22 With this in mind, Zarqawi not only developed his skills as a commander while in Herat, but his beliefs and strategic framework were shaped by the conversations that surrounded him. Yet Zarqawi’s strategy for Iraq was influenced by another jihadist scholar, an Egyptian with the nom de guerre Abu Bakr Naji, an AQ member who was in Kandahar at the same time.23 Naji is notable for his work, The Management of Savagery, published in 2004, which like al- Muhajir’s Jurisprudence of Jihad, advocates for the widespread use of violence. But Naji uses this tactic within the context of incremental stages that lead to the creation of an Islamic state. According to this text, violent fighting is a tool intended to create “rifts in regions and sectors of that state,” in which a condition of savagery (tawaḥḥush) can emerge to overthrow it.24 Naji emphasizes creating these ungoverned zones of savagery to undermine the legitimacy of existing states, creating zones were jihadist groups can take refuge and operate freely. To use language borrowed from James C. Scott’s work, Naji advocated infiltrating “ungoverned spaces” so the mujahidin could establish government services and later a state.25 This distinction, illustrates the expansionist nature of the jihadist program and distinguishes the movement from local communities that desired greater autonomy and self-rule. While infiltrating these zones of avoidance incited animosity within populations like Iraq’s tribes, Naji writes that by creating violent conflict and polarizing society, the masses will be forced to choose between the mujahidin and their enemies.26 He adds that the mujahidin needs to engage the enemy in the media as well as on the battlefield to control the movement’s message and create a positive image that will win over the people.27 Naji’s work presented commanders like Zarqawi with a blueprint for how to establish a state through force and attain popular support.

22 Charlie Winter and Abdullah K. al-Saud, “The Obscure Theologian Who Shaped ISIS,” The Atlantic, December 4, 2016. 23 In an AQ statement indicated that the pseudonym Abu Bakr Naji belonged to Muhammad Hassan Khalil al- Hakim, who died in 2008. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 37. 24 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 11. 25 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), ix-x. 26 By polarizing society and creating what he terms “zones of savagery,” the masses would be forced to choose between siding with “the people of truth” and “the people of falsehood.” And in these zones of savagery on the peripheries of state control, the mujahidin would be able to provide essential services, govern in accordance with shariʿa, and establish a fighting society. Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 107-108. 27 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 50-52. 80

While the text did not directly influence Zarqawi’s strategy in Iraq, Brian Fishman, in his critical work The Master Plan, conjectures that Naji based his writing on observations of Zarqawi’s actions in Iraq, and makes the case that the text should be read as filling the theoretical gaps of Zarqawi’s battlefield innovations.28 However, I argue that Naji’s writings and Zarqawi’s tactics are products of the same theoretical conversations that took place in Afghanistan, indicating a free exchange of ideas within the jihadists community.29 Although Fishman makes a fair case by arguing that battlefield strategy develops faster than doctrine, in Zarqawi’s 2003 letter to Osama bin Laden he details his strategic vision for operations in Iraq by using strikingly similar language to Naji’s more scholarly text. Zarqawi writes that, “someone may say that, in this matter [fighting Iraq’s Shiʿa], we are being hasty and rash and leading the [Islamic] nation into a battle for which it is not ready, [a battle] that will be revolting and in which blood will be spilled. This is exactly what we want… When the overwhelming majority stands in the ranks of truth, there has to be sacrifice for this religion.”30

When making a similar point Naji writes that, Dragging the masses into the battle requires more actions which will inflame opposition and which will make the people enter into the battle, willing or unwilling, such that each individual will go to the side which he supports. We must make this battle very violent, such that death is a heartbeat away… so that the two groups will realize that entering this battle will frequently lead to death.31

Although the overlap in their outlook cannot be ignored, the idea of using polarization to establish an Islamic state should not be attributed to either individual, but considered to be the product of a more collaborative intellectual environment in Afghanistan that influenced both. This theory fits into the larger consensus among scholars that the ideological foundation for Zarqawi’s violent program in Iraq did not emanate from him alone.32 Just as Abu Abdullah al-

28 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 38-39. 29 In the November 2015 issue of ISIS’s English language magazine Dabiq, an editor commented in a footnote that after reading The Management of Savagery Zarqawi stated that it is as if this man has read my mind. The editor tried to claim that this disproved the notion that Naji had an influence on the organization’s development, but was not able to convincingly refute that Zarqawi and The Management of Savagery were products of the same intellectual sources. Abu ‘Abdir-Rahman al-Banghali, “The Revival of Jihad in Benghal: With the Spread of the Light of the Khalifah,” Dabiq, 12 (November 2015), 39fn2. 30 Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, “Translation of Zarqawi’s Intercepted Message,” 10. This PDF was originally provided by www.iraqcoalition.org but accessed through the University of Oslo’s Jihadi Document Repository. 31 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 108. 32 Cole Bunzel, “Understating Zarqawi,” Jihadica, Accessed January 9, 2019, http://www.jihadica.com/understating-zarqawi/ ; Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” The Atlantic, Nov 30, 2018; “When Sayf [al-Adl] finally met Zarqawi, he found him a man of few words who sincerely wanted to bring 81

Muhajir’s influenced Zarqawi’s sectarian outlook and violent tactics, jihadist scholars like Naji were crucial to how Zarqawi created a strategic framework for Iraq. When applying such tactics in Iraq, Zarqawi and his followers experienced an adverse effect, because they were attempting to impose themselves on a region that Scott might describe as “not only a space of political resistance, but also a zone of cultural refusal.”33 That is, a culture of refusing outside power and restrictions, making the group’s political objectives and strict social codes especially offensive. Although the group initially saw a degree of success in subduing the population, a growing number of Iraqis became antagonistic towards the group’s presence after numerous community leaders were assassinated. Richard White writes that different groups adjust their differences to create a shared set of meanings and practices on the middle ground; however, the group's doctrinaire attitude with regard to its state project gave little room for accommodating the local population.34 Zarqawi and his followers believed that the local population could be persuaded to adopt their beliefs once they were exposed to them or once they were coerced to do so. Such “expedient” assumptions of others in Iraq served to justify the group's actions, but also contributed to a new set of realities on the middle ground as the population in al-Anbar refused this vision and explored different partnerships in the country. The dynamic nature of the middle ground in Iraq caused Zarqawi and his followers to lose and regain influence throughout the conflict. By examining Zarqawi’s organization through its application of the Management of Savagery, we can better understand how the group failed to apply it, and recalibrated its approach to controlling the middle ground during the Iraq War and after. In the aftermath of AQ's September 11 attacks in the United States, the jihadist movement in Afghanistan was disrupted by American bombardment throughout the country, causing many to flee. Zarqawi, along with other members of Jund al-Sham, migrated to neighboring Iran, where they stayed for several months, ending another transformative period in Zarqawi’s life. From his first trip to Afghanistan to his time in Iran, Zarqawi’s religious perspective, strategic thinking, and personal ambition changed significantly, providing the ideological foundation for his small following and their violent methods. Now removed from their enclave, they shifted their sights to Iraq, where recent developments were creating the

Sunni Islam back to ‘the reality of human life.’ But Zarqawi did not have a lot of specific ideas for how to do it.” William McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 8. 33 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 20. 34 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 82

conditions for what can be called a “shatter zone” or in the context of the jihadist movement, a “land of savagery.” A Historic Opportunity (2002-2004) According to Sayf al-Adl, Zarqawi and his group decided that the Americans would invade Iraq sooner or later, and that they needed to take part in the opposition and resistance. To them, the impending invasion presented a historic opportunity to create a “zone of savagery” and expand their influence, paving the way for a new Islamic state in the region.35 In the early months of 2002, Zarqawi and his followers traveled to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq and joined a jihadist group associated with AQ called Ansar al-Islam.36 From this northern base near the Iranian border, outside of the Iraqi regime’s reach, Zarqawi began to establish a jihadist network throughout the country.37 Although Zarqawi’s time with Ansar al-Islam was brief, he established valuable relationships in the country that contributed to his successes in the initial months of the Iraq War. In the pre-invasion period, Zarqawi started to develop a reputation among American officials. U.S. Special Forces teams were well aware of the activities of the Ansar al-Islam camp, including their testing of poisons and chemical weapons, and this information was used to support the U.S. theory of a relationship between AQ and Saddam. This analysis would later prove to be false as the Iraqi regime was equally concerned about Ansar al-Islam’s operations in its northern territory.38 Yet it was Zarqawi’s connections to AQ finances and his recent arrival from Afghanistan that the Bush Administration highlighted to add another dimension to its case for the campaign. In a speech on February 5, 2003, designed to convince the UN General Assembly to vote for a draft resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein’s government, Secretary of State Colin Powell mentioned Zarqawi’s name twenty-one times.39 The highly publicized and controversial speech gave the jihadist an international reputation—among western nations and jihadists alike—and attracted an even larger number of

35 Sayf al-Adl, My Experience With Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 19. 36 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 69-70. 37 Following the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. imposed a no fly zone in the Kurdish North, and later in the Shiʿa South, in order to prevent the Iraqi Army from launching military offensives on these regions, and as a result the government’s influence was tenuous. 38 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 88-89. 39 Colin L. Powell, “Remarks to the United Nations: February 5, 2003,” U.S. Department of State Archives, accessed Jan. 11, 2019, https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm. 83

recruits from within Iraq and across the Middle East to join Zarqawi’s newly established Monotheism and Jihad Organization (jama‘at al-tawhid w’al-jihad).40 Zarqawi’s group of foreign fighters, however, did not have a commanding presence within Iraq’s resistance movement until well after the invasion. It was only one piece of the larger mosaic of militant groups that organized in the wake of the U.S. invasion. As was noted in the first chapter, these groups comprised a wide ideological range that included nationalists, Baʿthists, Islamists, and any mixture thereof. While the goals of these various groups differed, most sought to resist the U.S. occupation and the government it created.41 The majority of these groups were based locally and led by traditional leaders in the country who were respected within their communities and had organizational experience, such as tribal shaykhs, local preachers (imams), and Baʿthists.42 Many of these leaders held deep reservations about working with Zarqawi’s network because of the group’s demographic composition, and its use of violent tactics.43 In spite of these concerns, Monotheism and Jihad recruited a significant number of Iraqis, including former Baʿthists,44 into its ranks, and won the support of the broader resistance because of its organizational capacity and access to financial resources. In this early period of the Iraq War, the group was able to cultivate the relationships it needed to establish itself by accommodating the needs of potential partners, persuading them to, at least passively, accept its practices as valuable contributions to the resistance and in shaping the image of the movement.45 Monotheism and Jihad’s controversial tactics were central to the strategy of “polarizing” the country and inspiring a violent Shiʿi response that would push Iraq’s Sunnis to side with the

40 Jason M. Breslow, “Colin Powell: U.N. Speech ‘Was a Great Intelligence Failure’,” PBS, May 17, 2016. 41 These goals ranged from advocating to give Iraq’s Arab Sunnis a greater voice in national governance, to reestablishing the old regime, to creating an entirely new government on ideological principles. Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 32. 42 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 32-33. 43 Martyrdom operations (i.e. suicide bombings) have been looked upon much more tolerantly by jihadist literature since the mid-1990s, but in more classical discourse the practice was generally frowned upon. David Cook, “Radical Islam and Martyrdom Operations: What Should the United States Do?,” James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy (March 2005), 4-5. 44 Like the various militia groups that comprised the resistance movement in Iraq, there was a wide politico- ideological spectrum among former Baʿthists, ranging from the Baʿth Party’s particular version of Arab Nationalism to more jihadi salafism. This divide among the Baʿth Party’s ranks emerged during the 1990s as a part of what was known as the “faith campaign.” Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 32-42; Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 220. 45 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x 84

mujahidin. Within the first six months of the the occupation, Zarqawi put his network into action, conducting attacks throughout the country to increase the level of stress on U.S. resources.46 The group's actions on the local level cannot be separated from its national vision, as they played a significant role in shaping the image of the Sunni resistance movement, and incited new sectarian tensions between Iraqis. In Zarqawi’s 2003 letter to Osama bin Laden, he writes that targeting and hitting [the Shiʿa] in [their] religious, political, and military depth will provoke them to show the Sunnis their rabies … If we succeed in dragging them into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger and annihilating death at the hands of these Sabeans [Shiʿa]. Despite their weakness and fragmentation, the Sunnis are the sharpest blades, the most determined, and the most loyal.47

Zarqawi’s polarization strategy was designed to leave Iraq's Sunni population with no other option but to side with Zarqawi and his followers in their state project in Iraq by feeding into its fear of marginalization. In this way Monotheism and Jihad sought to “dictate the terms of accommodation” on the middle ground between it and other Sunnis in Iraq.48 While Zarqawi’s violent tactics antagonized more Iraqis than he anticipated, Coalition policies like de- Baʿthification created an anti-U.S. sentiment that Monotheism and Jihad was able to exploit to build its momentum. At the same time these tactics informed the Coalition's perception of the resistance as terrorists and extreme elements that could be ignored as not having significant influence in the country. The Sunni population’s need for an ally ensured the group a position on the middle ground, but the Monotheism and Jihad’s exploitative nature did not earn it the trust of its partners. AQ’s leadership was skeptical that Zarqawi’s polarization strategy could unify the Islamic community against the U.S. In fact, the larger organization did not share Zarqawi’s

46 Examples of these attacks include the bombing on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on August 7 and the Imam Ali Mosque in the city of Najaf on August 30, killing 11 and 95 respectively Jamie Wilson, “Jordanian Embassy Blast Kills 11 in Baghdad,” The Guardian, 7 Aug 2003; Neil MacFarquhar and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “After the War: Attack at Shrine; Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 95 at Shiite Mosque,” New York Times, Aug 30, 2003. Neil MacFarquhar and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “After the War: Attack at Shrine; Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 95 at Shiite Mosque,” New York Times, Aug 30, 2003 47 Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, “Translation of Zarqawi’s Intercepted Message,” 8-9. 48 Richard White, The Middle Ground, xv. 85

sectarian vision. Yet in the period before Monotheism and Jihad became AQI in October 2004, the group proved itself to be highly efficient and assumed a major role in Iraq’s resistance.49 Even after Monotheism and Jihad’s merger with AQ, the latter remained optimistic that it could rein in some of the former’s most violent tendencies, and prevent the alienation of the Iraqi population. In spite of AQ’s concerns to the contrary, Zarqawi’s relationships in Iraq’s Sunni regions were central to his success in Iraq. This was not only because the Sunni community was the group’s ideal ally in the war, but because logistically the Sunni dominant provinces of al- Anbar, Nineveh, and Salah al-Din were critical to smuggling fighters, arms, and funds into the country through Syria.50 In the early stages of the conflict, Zarqawi was able to find a number of local allies, particularly among local imams and some Baʿthists, who were willing to lend their support to the organization’s vision and meet the group’s logistical and recruitment needs. The ideological support from these partners was crucial to the group not having to accommodate its opposition on the middle ground by conceding aspects of its political project. In Fallujah, Zarqawi found a particularly helpful ally in the popular Imam, Abdullah Janabi, whose following enabled Monotheism and Jihad to expand its base of support during the battle with U.S forces.51 In partnership with Monotheism and Jihad, the scholar established several Islamic courts in Fallujah that issued radical rulings in support of the group’s state project. Additionally, he welcomed the influx of foreign fighters into the city.52 Janabi’s case illustrates how the group formed local partnerships to facilitate its local operations and larger goals in the country. Indeed, Naji emphasizes forming partnerships with individuals like Janabi who can provide “rational and [shariʿa] justification for the operations, especially (targeting) the masses.”53 Janabi, and preachers like him, acted as ideological access points to the broader Iraqi population, which Monotheism and Jihad used to expand their influence in Iraq and shape religious discourse to reflect their own and to create a reality on the middle ground that was more conducive to their vision in the country.

49 Sami Yousafzai, “Terror Broker,” Newsweek, April 10, 2005. 50 Anonymous, “Smuggling, Syria, and Spending,” in Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout: al-Qaʿida’s Road in and out of Iraq, ed. Brian H. Fishman (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2008), 91. 51 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 37. 52 Bill Roggio, “Abdullah al Janabi Openly Preaches in Fallujah Mosque,” FDD’s Long War Journal, January 18, 2014, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/01/abdullah_al_janabi_openly_prea.php. 53 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 51. 86

Pekka Hämäläinen provides an apt comparison to help understand Monotheism and Jihad's place within The Management of Savagery's strategic framework. In Hämäläinen’s account of the the Comanche, this nomadic group ruled by coexisting, controlling, and exploiting others on the edge of their power, altering their way of life and incorporating them into a complex economic system of governance.54 Similarly, Monotheism and Jihad exhibited these exploitative practices to compensate for its lack of territorial authority. Yet the Comanche’s amorphous administration closely reflects what Naji defined as the "administration of savagery," where authority is determined by social influence, not direct governance. Just as the Comanche “imposed their will upon neighboring polities, harnessed the economic potential of other societies for their own use, and persuaded their rivals to adopt and accept their customs and norms,” Monotheism and Jihad sought to extend its own influence, laying the foundation for a more formal state power. Within this strategy, individuals like Janabi served to expand Monotheism and Jihad’s legitimacy and the group’s control of the social landscape.55 With this influence the group intended to impose a new "shared" set of beliefs on the local population that advanced its vision for Iraq's future and built support for its political program on the middle ground.56 As previous chapters have indicated, the First and Second Battles of Fallujah were major turning points for the organization, as it obtained a dominant position within the resistance, enabling it to instigate further conflict between Arab Sunnis and Coalition forces. Up to this point, sectarianism was rarely invoked as a reason for conflict in the province as many of the Arab tribes had both Sunni and Shiʿa members, though Sunnis were the overwhelming majority. As Samuel Helfont notes, the distrust between the two populations was not originally sectarian in nature, but nationalistic, and had strong roots in the political discourse of the Baʿth Party.57 Animosity towards the Coalition was extended to the Shiʿi population for partnering with the foreign occupying force. While not all members of Iraq’s Shiʿi community were cooperating

54 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 4. 55 Naji writes that in order to meet the requirements of the management of savagery the mujahidin must, among various other prerequisites, “raise the level of belief” and “[deter] the hypocrites with proof and other means[,] forcing them to repress and conceal their hypocrisy, to hide their discouraged opinions, and to comply with those in authority until their evil is put in check.” Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 11-12. 56 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 57 Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion, 230-231. 87

with the U.S.,58 this negative rhetoric allowed Zarqawi’s organization to insert its sectarian ideas into the public discourse and create a social tension that was largely absent before 2003. Yet Zarqawi’s vision of polarization was not confined to sectarian conflict. He also sought to polarize major tribal groups, taking advantage of the internal divisions among them in order to, in the words of Naji, “change the trajectory of [their] solidarity so that what it will be set upon the path of God.” Naji writes in The Management of Savagery that “after a period of time in which [the tribes] have mixed with our followers and their hearts have been suffused with the picture of faith, we will find that their followers do not accept anything which contradicts the [shariʿa].”59 With this approach Zarqawi sought to integrate Iraq’s tribal community with the mujahidin in order to expand his ranks and eliminate loyalty to non-Islamic causes. However, Zarqawi’s group would become increasingly hostile towards those who refused to accept the group’s dominance, harassing or killing those suspected of working alongside U.S. forces. For Zarqawi, this dominance was not restricted to the battlefield, but also included controlling the cultural landscape by creating new narratives that redefined its opposition. By engaging in what James Buss terms “clearing the middle ground,” Zarqawi and his group could control the socio- political sphere, defining the narratives of AQI's political goals and those of its enemies.60 Despite this preference for absolute control, Zarqawi’s group could not impose itself on all of Iraq’s Sunnis, and needed to “persuade Iraq’s Sunnis by appealing to what they [perceived] to be [their]”61 goals. This distorted perception to the populations needs aligned with its vision, and resulted in the group creating a new “praiseworthy solidarity,” to replace the “sinful solidarity” of the tribes.62 By projecting and then imposing its own beliefs on the population, Monotheism and Jihad incited greater opposition from this community, which wanted a more equal voice on the middle ground. Creating a “Praiseworthy Solidarity” (ʿasabiya mamduha ) (2004-2006)

58 Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion, 223-224; Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada, 132-134. 59 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 112; Similarly, Zarqawi said in a 2005 speech that regardless of one’s declared cause, fighting the occupation was a sure way for an individual to realize his spiritual distance from God and God’s path. Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, “Lecture Series: Do Not Harm Those Who Desert Them,” in Collections of the Fifth Shining Work Plan (Shabakat al-Baraaq al-Islamiya, 2006), 433. 60 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West With Words: Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 5 61 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 62 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 39. 88

In the months after the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, many resistance groups were weakened, and Zarqawi’s organization—recently rebranded as AQI—asserted itself as the dominant player within the resistance movement and took greater control of Iraq’s Western province.63 Zarqawi and his followers intended to expand their support base by undermining existing political authorities and the population’s identification with non-Islamic ideologies. By applying al-Maqdisi’s interpretation of al-walʾa wa-lʾbaraʾa, the group claimed it alone wielded the authority to lead the resistance because of its Islamic roots, causing many tribal leaders and other militant groups to turn against it throughout lat 2004 and 2005. However, there were several tribes and clans that remained committed to supporting AQI because they benefited from the partnership.64 This period should be considered the height of AQI’s influence, when its alliances were strongest and other groups’ goals most clearly aligned with those of AQI. The group’s impact can be characterized by its successful effort to influence the January 2005 elections. But the group’s dominant position in the middle ground would not last as Iraqis pursued different partnerships to protect their interests and curtail its dominance in the province. AQI took many steps to ensure the January 2005 elections were not held in Sunni areas of the country. The boycott was the first large scale effort by the organization to intimidate the population and directly affect the political landscape through violence and by financially co- opting the province’s leadership. The strategy proved extremely effective, with only a two percent voter turnout in al-Anbar,65 reaffirming the organization’s inclination towards intimidation tactics. Consequently, the group was even less inclined to concede aspects of its political project as it viewed itself as bringing cultural advancement to the Sunnis of Iraq, a rationale that justified its methods.66 By clearing the middle ground of traditional leaders in al-

63 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 44. 64 Lin Todd, Iraq Tribal Study - al-Anbar Governorate: The Albu Fahad Tribe, The Albu Mahal Tribe, and The Albu Issa Tribe (Pentagon City, VA: Department of Defense, 2006), 4-19, 20; Carter Malkasian provides the account of a Lieutenant Colonel who asked several men from the Albu Mahal about the difference between the nationalist resistance and terrorists, to which these men reportedly replied “We cannot tell the difference between the muqamwa [resistance] and the irhabiyeen [terrorists]. Who Can?” Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 82. 65 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 176; Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq: Third Edition (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 2012), 289. 66 In reference to the Qing and British Empires as well as the rule of Orthodox Protestant Christianity in Appalachia, Scott writes that these other imperial powers “would style themselves, unselfconsciously, as bearers of order, progress, enlightenment, and civilization. All wished to extend the advantages of administrative discipline, associated with the state or organized religion, to areas previously ungoverned.” Indeed AQI carried the same mission of advancement by proselytizing those that did not adhere to its worldview. James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 2. 89

Anbar, and establishing itself as the sole dominant cultural, military, and political power, AQI sought to increase support for its vision of an Islamic State as the only possible outcome for the conflict among Iraq’s Sunnis. The group’s authority in these areas was based upon its ability to cooperate with a small segment of the population, while intimidating any opposition through violence. For example, AQI negotiated with two small tribes to create a new status quo in al-Qaʾim, but did not establish popular support for its political program in the city or elsewhere. Instead the tribal community was increasingly concerned that they were losing their financial and political influence to this foreign-led group. The strategy of polarization was certainly dividing Iraqi society, but the number of Iraqis who were unifying against AQI was growing in size.67 The organization’s doctrinaire attitude made it unwilling to concede authority to its partners and quick to antagonize other Iraqis. AQI’s violent strategy made it the more immediate threat to Iraq’s tribal community, pushing shaykhs to partner with the U.S. in order to off-set AQI and maintain the community’s interests in the long term. These developments signaled a shift on the middle ground away from AQI as the group lost its ability to influence the actions of others in the province. Zarqawi’s strategy concerned many within AQ’s leadership, and, in the summer of 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote a letter calling for Zarqawi to improve his AQI’s relationship with the Iraqi population. Without this support, Zawahiri saw no way for the movement to reach its goal of establishing an Islamic State. “In the absence of this popular support, the Islamic mujahid movement would be crushed in the shadows… and the struggle between the Jihadist elite and the arrogant authorities would be confined to prison dungeons far from the public and the light of day.”68 While Zarqawi could have considered Zawahiri’s comments more thoroughly, he appears to have ignored most of Zawahiri’s concerns, and instead read the letter as AQ’s approval to expedite preparations for creating a state. In a later passage Zawahiri writes that, things may develop faster than we imagine… Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative and impose a fait accompli upon our enemies, instead of the enemy imposing one on us, wherein our lot would be to merely resist their schemes.69

67 Lin Todd, Iraq Tribal Study - al-Anbar Governorate, 4-21. 68 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi,” 4. 69 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi,” 5. 90

While Zawahiri meant that Zarqawi needed to establish a higher degree of popular support before the withdrawal process, Zarqawi likely read this passage to mean he had permission to establish a state in Iraq as soon as possible so that the group was prepared to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. departure. Because the group’s experiences up to this point in the war supported its strategy of forcefully asserting its dominance, Zarqawi increased AQI’s use of violence to intimidate the Iraqi population from opposing the ascendancy of a new Islamic emirate in Iraq in an attempt to regain its influence over the constantly shifting middle ground. However, AQI would suffer several setbacks in late 2005. First, the organization lost its control over al-Qaʾim in November, due to the partnership between the Albu Mahal and the U.S. forces in the area. AQI’s local leaders reported that many of their tribal partners fled to neighboring Syria when the tide was turning in al-Qaʾim to avoid retribution for participating in AQI’s violent program.70 The loss of the city made it more difficult—though not impossible— for the group to manage its supply lines and operations throughout the country. Second, U.S. forces increased their presence in al-Anbar and were cooperating with other militant groups, limiting AQI’s influence in the province.71 Last, and most critically, the group was censured by AQ’s leadership for its use of excessive violence against civilians during the November bombing in Amman, Jordan. In a letter from ʿAtiyah Abd al-Rahman al-Libi, a senior leader in AQ, Zarqawi was criticized for not communicating with AQ’s leadership and for not consulting with Iraq’s religious scholars, tribes, and other Islamist groups, limiting the group’s influence at the local level. ʿAtiyah stressed the need to place policy over militarism in the future, and that operations like the one in Amman were not an effective use of resources because they complicated the organization’s reputation and relationships.72 Due to this mounting opposition, AQI slowed its operations in December 2005 to minimize political scrutiny, and position itself for a resurgence later in the conflict, conceding not its overall objectives, but its perceived position as the dominant power shaping events in al-Anbar, reaffirming the shift away from the group on the middle ground.

70 “Analysis of the State of ISI,” 2007 (Harmony Document NMEC-2007-612449), 4. 71 Amy Belasco, “Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012: Cost and Other Potential Issues,” Congressional Research Service, July 2, 2009, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf. 72 ʿAtiyah Abd al-Rahman al-Libi, “ʿAtiyah’s letter to Zarqawi,” 2005, accessed through Combating Terrorism Center: Harmony Program, 3, 6. 91

As a result of AQI’s dormant state, the December parliamentary elections were held without incident. Indeed, the Anbar Security Council’s success in securing the December elections cannot be separated from AQI’s inactivity. The impetus for these various resistance groups to unify was a direct consequence of AQI’s intimidation campaign of harassment, abduction, and assassination. The jihadist organization’s setbacks provided a false sense of stability, and enabled the Security Council to demonstrate to the Coalition that it was ready to take control of local security matters.73 The calm of December did not last, however, as AQI resumed its efforts to polarize Iraqi society, while also placating AQ’s leadership. On January 15, a new umbrella organization, named the Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC), was formed, unifying AQI and several smaller groups. With Abdullah Janabi as its symbolic Iraqi leader, the new body presented a more amicable face to AQ’s leaders and distanced Zarqawi from responsibility for the violent developments in the country.74 But after General Casey, the highest ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, announced 7,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn in 2006, AQI resumed its intimidation campaign, making it clear that unlike the U.S., AQI intended to stay in the country and continue to expand its influence over the middle ground in the long term.75 Richard White, commenting on the middle ground, writes that “accommodation took place because, for long periods of time in large parts of the colonial world, whites could neither dictate to Indians nor ignore them.” In Iraq, AQI continued tried to “dictate the terms of accomodation” to the Iraqi population, ignoring their own interests, despite the fact that it did not have the resources to impose its vision on the country.76 Because AQI refused to accommodate its Iraqi partners they started to cooperate with U.S. forces to clear AQI from the middle ground by eliminating the group’s physical and cultural influence, producing a new political reality in partnership with the Coalition that better suited the community’s interests.77 However, with the prospective withdrawal of U.S. forces, AQI’s presence could not be ignored indefinitely.

73 “Iraq Body Count: Database,” Iraq Body Count, accessed January 30, 2019, https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/; Alfred B. Connable, “Intelligence Assessment in Late 2005 and 2006,” in Al-Anbar vol. I: American Perspectives (Quantico, VA: USMC University Press, 2009), 126; Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 73.

74 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 79. 75 John Hendren, “Rumsfeld: U.S. to Trim Troops in Iraq,” NPR, December 23, 2005. 76 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x, xv. 77 James Joseph Buss, Winning the West with Words, 5. 92

Renewed levels of violence restored AQI’s influence in the province, silenced its opposition, and brought a greater number of fighters into its sphere of influence, many of whom were previously aligned with the Security Council. At the same time, the group resumed its strategy of polarization while also distancing itself from controversy,78 providing it with added legitimacy among its critics in Iraq and in AQ. This back-and-forth between AQI and its detractors demonstrates how various groups in Iraq were forced to accommodate others in order to advance their own goals. As was discussed with the U.S. in the previous chapter, AQI engaged these groups by creatively and expediently assuming that the goals of these groups aligned with its larger aims of establishing a state. Despite the growth of a tribal-U.S. partnership in this period, there seemed to be little in 2006 that could erode AQI’s commitment to its violent program. Not even the death of the organization’s leader, Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi, in a U.S. special forces raid on June 7, 2006 would distract from its goals. Even Ayman al-Zawahiri, in his eulogy for the Jordanian, affirmed that AQI should press forward to establish an Islamic state.79 While the speech may have partly been rhetorical, Zarqawi’s followers interpreted Zawahiri’s comments as an endorsement to pursue its state project in Iraq. Within four months, AQI’s new leadership announced the creation of a state, and with this transition came the mission of conquering and proselytizing the non-jihadist Sunni population. However, when this leadership was not able to pressure its opponents to adjust to the organization’s cultural and political order, it was forced to return to the middle ground and adjust its approach to forming partnerships in the country. The Establishment of The Islamic State (2006-2009) The Egyptian, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was named the new head of AQI on June 12, receiving a mixed reception within AQ. Some who knew the former bombmaker reported that he cared little for holding a position of leadership, while others hoped he would heal the rifts that had formed between the Iraq branch and the Afghanistan leadership.80 At first it seemed like Abu Hamza was trying to balance the group’s allegiance to AQ while maintaining its independence.

78 On February 22 the al-ʿAskari Mosque in Samarra was bombed, inciting some of the worst sectarian violence throughout the country, without killing anyone in the incident itself. AQI is believed to have carried out the attack, but did not claim responsibility. Thus the group was officially distancing itself from its own violent activities, while also continuing to incite a sectarian civil war. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 80-81. 79 Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Lament of a Martyr of the Umma and the Emir of Martyrs: Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi,” Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad (June 2006), 4. 80 Brian Fishman, The Master Plan, 87-88. 93

He quickly announced oaths of allegiance (bayʿa) to both Osama bin Laden as the leader of AQ, and Mullah Omar as the leader of the Taliban and the “commander of the faithful,” a special title reserved for the spiritual head of the Islamic community.81 However, it became clear that Abu Hamza would prioritize the group’s independence when the Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC) abruptly declared the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) on October 15, 2007. Adding to this confusion, the state’s new leader, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi—a relatively unknown figure, even within Jihadist circles—was pronounced the commander of the faithful by the MSC, contradicting Abu Hamza’s previous oath of allegiance and sparking new divisions within the jihadi community. Despite Abu Umar’s somewhat unremarkable biography, he was a valuable figure for the group because he could claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe, Quraysh, making him eligible to be a caliph, the supreme political and spiritual leader of the Islamic community.82 ISI, however, did not coordinate with AQ’s leadership in the decision to appoint Abu Umar. In fact, the declaration of ISI and the dissolution of the MSC and its members was as much a shock to AQ as it was the rest of the world.83 Nevertheless, Zawahiri affirmed that ISI was legitimate and that there was no longer a group known as al-Qaʿida in Iraq.84 Zawahiri likely made this announcement as a conciliatory gesture to prevent further divisions in the jihadist movement, assuming that ISI would again submit to AQ’s leadership in private. However, Abu Umar and Abu Hamza used Zawahiri’s statements to validate their independence. Following the announcement of ISI, the group seemed to quickly change its strategy, incorporating numerous other groups into its sphere of influence in a merger that was announced on November 10, 2006.85 By incorporating these groups as nominal equals, ISI presented itself to

81 William McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 16. 82 Abu Umar came from a wealthy Iraqi background, and served within the National Police under Saddam’s regime before being removed for his extremist views. In the following years before the U.S. invasion, Abu Umar did odd jobs and eventually became the local imam in the small town of Haditha, later joining Zarqawi’s organization in 2003. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 89-90. 83 William McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 16. 84 In a letter to an unknown recipient, Adam Gadahn, an American spokesman for al-Qaʿida, writes about the contradictions of al-Qaʿida’s leadership associating with the Islamic State and their writing condemning actions that they have taken. Adam Gadahn, “Letter from Adam Gadahn,” (Harmony Document SOCOM-2012-0000004); William McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 19. 85 These groups included The Army of the Conquerors, The Army of the Companions, the Monotheism and Sunna Brigades, and several of Iraq’s tribal shaykhs. “Islamist Websites Monitor No. 8,” The Middle East Media Research Institute, October 17 2006, accessed January 22, 2019, https://www.memri.org/reports/islamist-websites-monitor- no-8; Kyle Orton, “The Announcement of the Islamic State—in 2006,” Wordpress, 18 March 2018, accessed 94

Iraq’s Sunnis as an alternative to the Coalition and the government in Baghdad that would accommodate their collective interests and unify the movement to achieve a common goal. However, this attempt to expand ISI’s base did not diminish criticisms of the newly established state, and the group was severely rebuked by other jihadists because it did not hold a territory in which to implement shariʿa law. Abu Umar and Abu Hamza countered these criticisms by claiming that their state, like the Prophet’s following in Medina, was based on the community’s allegiance to their emir, Abu Umar, not territorial control.86 By connecting the legitimacy of ISI to the Prophet, the group side-stepped many critiques coming from other jihadists. Abu Umar proceeded undeterred, claiming in December 2006 to hold the support of the Iraqi people, including 70 percent of Sunni shaykhs, as the only legitimate authority in Iraq.87 In the spirit of his supposed position of influence, he then called for U.S. forces to leave within one month. While Abu Umar exaggerated the group’s power, his announcement served as a reminder to Iraqis that the U.S. would not be in the country indefinitely and that ISI’s vision would not be silenced.88 Rather, the group’s rhetoric and actions throughout 2006 indicate that the group still sought to establish a absolute control in Iraq, and eliminate all opposing elements that did not acculturate to its Islamic vision of Iraq’s future. In spite of ISI’s attempts to impose its political project on the middle ground and control the reality that resulted from it, the group’s opposition continued to grow and diversify. In the month before MSC established the ISI, both the Islamic Army in Iraq and a group of tribal shaykhs, acting under the name of the Anbar Awakening, declared war on the group.89

January 22, 2019, https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/the-announcement-of-the-islamic-state-in- 2006/. 86 Uthman bin Abd al-Rahman al-Tamimi, Informing the People About the Origins of the Islamic State (Iraq: Islamic State of Iraq Ministry of Shariah, 2006), 60. Available: https://www.jihadica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ilam- al-anam.pdf (Accessed February 1, 2019). 87 In this announcement Abu Umar said “my beloved umma, the defiant one [America] is becoming weary and has started searching for an escape and striving for talks with all possible sides and parties.” Kyle Orton, “The Announcement of the Islamic State—in 2006,” Wordpress, 18 March 2018, accessed January 22, 2019, https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/the-announcement-of-the-islamic-state-in-2006/. 88 In Abu Umar’s most famous speech on April 16, 2007, he declared “The Islamic State is remaining,” indicating that the group had no intention of backing away from its state project. Kyle Orton, “How the Islamic State’s Caliph Responded to Failure Last Time,” Wordpress, January 21, 2017, accessed February 28, 2019, https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/how-the-islamic-states-caliph-responded-to-defeat-last- time/#more-3412. 89 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 99; Dr. Ibrahim al-Shammari’s interview with al-Boraq, reprinted in Islamic Army of Iraq’s Al-Fursan. “Primary Conversation with the Islamic Army in Iraq: Unbreakable Arrows are Still in the Quiver of the Mujahidin and God’s Victory is Near,” Al-Fursan no. 10 (Oct. 2006). 95

As has been noted in the two previous chapters, the Anbari population’s interests were not uniform nor were the ways that they pursued them. While these groups felt that ISI was a potential threat to their own influence, they had their own internal divisions, which ISI exploited to build its support among their ranks. Though the fractured nature of the Sunni community meant ISI could not impose uniform control over it, the group was able to expand its influence on the middle ground. By incorporating break-away factions of other groups, ISI managed the divisions within the resistance and claimed a higher degree of authority within this “zone of savagery.” Although its ability to persuade others to support a version of its political project was improving, ISI's leadership only had limited control over their members, complicating the organization's relationships with other jihadist groups. The group’s limited control of its own activities on the ground was a source of new tension with other resistance groups in the country as Abu Umar and Abu Hamza attempted to co-opt new partners and local leaders attacked them.90 This development hindered the organization’s effort to persuade others to cooperate with it, let alone accept its political program as a “shared” set of goals.91 In one instance, Abu Hamza wrote a flattering letter to the leader of Ansar al-Sunna, Abu Abdullah al-Shafiʿi, who led a split from Ansar al-Islam and its leader Mullah Krekar. Abu Hamza offered him a cabinet position within the ISI’s bureaucracy, but al-Shafiʿi declined, likely because of the violent actions ISI fighters took against Ansar al-Sunna members.92 In a later exchange between Abu Hamza and Ansar al-Sunna, Abu Hamza dismissed many accusations of slander and murder as rumors, and then referred to a fatwa issued by Abu Umar, implying that Ansar al-Sunna needed to submit to ISI or risk violating its laws.93 While the language was no longer conciliatory, Abu Hamza still pursued the unification of all organizations in Iraq under the ISI’s banner, and treated them as subjects of ISI’s authority. However, the contradiction between ISI’s rhetoric and actions antagonized many of the group’s potential allies, diminishing its ability to influence others or shape daily realities created by different groups on the middle ground.

90 In his analysis of the state of ISI, one fighter writes that because of ineffective leadership and limited oversight many emirs lost control of the situation on the ground and hid their failures from the group’s senior leadership. “Analysis of the State of ISI,” 2007 (Harmony Document NMEC-2007-612449), 20-21. 91 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 92 Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, “Letter From Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to Abi Abdullah al-Shafiʿi,” (Harmony Document NMEC-2007-636898). 93 Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, “Letter From Abu Hamza to Ansar al-Sunna Highlighting Divisions,” 2007 (Harmony Document NMEC-2007-636878). 96

Divisions between ISI and other groups became more public in 2007 as the group’s violent actions incited Iraqis to fight ISI alongside U.S. forces, instead of suppressing opposition. ISI’s uncompromising nature and aggressive actions confirmed that it was the most immediate threat to Iraq’s Sunnis. Consequently, this community expanded its partnership with the U.S., rejecting ISI’s effort to impose its political project on the country. ISI’s ability to operate in al- Anbar Province decreased dramatically by the end of 2007, and, as a result, U.S. forces were moved from al-Anbar to other areas of the country, if not withdrawn from Iraq altogether.94 For the Awakening and the Coalition it seemed as though they were on the verge of clearing ISI from the middle ground, militarily, and could continue to erase the group’s influence from the cultural landscape. However, ISI’s influence could still be felt on the middle ground as it sporadically conducted attacks across the country, and shifted its center of operations north to Iraq’s third largest city of Mosul. Since 2003, the ethnically and religiously diverse city was important to the organization’s presence in the country, and ISI took advantage of the area’s divisions to create a major base of influence. A cache of documents seized by U.S. forces in 2007 reveal that Mosul was a key hub for the group’s trafficking of foreign fighters and access to foreign funds. The group’s long-term connection to the city made it an easy choice to become its new administrative center. In 2009 Mosul became a flash point for ethnic conflict, which the group was ready to exploit. With mounting distrust between Baghdad and the country’s Sunni populations, ISI found many sympathizers who were willing to cooperate with it.95 While ISI was believed to be in its death throes during this period, the group exerted itself in new ways that implied, if anything, a growth in influence. Certainly, ISI’s size was reduced in terms of membership and geographical control, but the group’s decentralized structure was its saving grace in 2008 and 2009. As different ISI cells were disrupted by U.S. forces and the ISF, other operations continued unhindered. Additionally, in 2008 and 2009, many within the Arab Sunni community felt that their opponent was not the “defeated” ISI, but the central government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was not willing to pay tribal forces as the U.S. had, nor would he integrate them into the ISF.96 These policies and

94 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 164. 95 Brian Fishman, Dysfunction and Decline: Lessons Learned from Inside al-Qaʿida in Iraq (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2009), 24. 96 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 164-165. 97

others contributed to an existing feeling that Baghdad was becoming increasingly sectarian and increasingly influenced by Iran. With this anti-government sentiment, fear of further marginalization, and personal rivalries in the political arena, ISI found willing partners within Mosul’s government and several Sunni organizations. ISI capitalized on the divisions in the city to fill the gaps of the state’s authority, and to persuade its partners to accommodate its vision as they cooperated in creating an alternative to Baghdad’s rule on the middle ground. In a letter dated August 7, 2009, a local emir describes one ISI cell’s mission to infiltrate the infidel government administratively, for the purpose of directing some of the economical and financial decisions issued by the apostates, for the benefit of the Muslims in general and the Mujahidin in particular. Also to benefit from the possibility of recruiting individuals from the infidel government as sources of information.97

It appears that this small group was successful with both tasks as it skimmed money from reconstruction contracts and developed relationships with high ranking officials, including the new governor of Nineveh. The relationships noted in this letter indicate that the group wielded significant amount of political power in Mosul and was more durable than thought at the time.98 Following the start of U.S. troop withdrawals in 2008, these politicians needed to find a new partner to protect their interests from the Iraqi government. But given the perceived weakness of ISI in 2008, these Sunni leaders likely felt they needed ISI less than it needed them, and that they could dictate terms to the group, not the other way around.99 While the Mosul cell’s political partners held more institutional authority than ISI, the organization’s polarization strategy was once again having a great effect in attracting Sunnis, due to the government’s own sectarian actions. ISI’s attacks throughout 2008 and 2009 pushed the government to exert greater pressure upon the Sunni population, which caused a large number of Sunnis to search for alternatives to the government. By doing so ISI manufactured a need in the Sunni community for a political partnership, indirectly “dictating the terms of accommodation” to the wider population and

97 “A Letter to the Sheikhs of ISI Shows level of Collaboration Between ISI and Members in the Iraqi Government,” (Harmony Project NMEC-2007-186334). 98 Some of the names mentioned in this letter include Athil al-Najafi, the new governor of Nineveh; Faruq Abd-al- Qadir, the Minister of Communication; and Hajj Riyad, the office director of the deputy prime Minister Rafiʿ al- Isawi. “A Letter to the Sheikhs of ISI Shows level of Collaboration Between ISI and Members in the Iraqi Government,” (Harmony Project NMEC-2007-186334). 99 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 98

assuring that the group’s political project would result from its interactions in the shared space of the middle ground.100 In late 2009 there was a dramatic uptick in large-scale attacks by ISI, two of which elicited especially reactionary responses from the government. The two incidents, which were described as pre-election violence, killed 245 and wounded over 500.101 Maliki blamed several foreign governments for helping ISI, including Syria and Saudi Arabia, then replaced the head of Baghdad security, and called for an increase in death sentences to deter criminal acts.102 Amnesty International reported in December 2009 that over 900 Iraqis were facing death sentences issued in unfair trials, prompting opposition groups to accuse the ruling Daʿwa Party of using the executions to gain an advantage in the coming 2009 elections.103 Among those arrested were members of the Sons of Iraq movement, which copied the structure of the Awakening movement in al-Anbar Province, and applied them throughout the country. But this movement’s leadership was viewed as a threat to security by Maliki and his government.104 While these government actions imprisoned and threatened to execute Sunni leaders, ISI took advantage of a growing conviction in the community that Sunnis were second class citizens. General Odierno, then the commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, expressed his concerns in 2008 that government shortcomings could lead to a resurgence of the organization. “If the population feels they are not being supported by the [government], they may not want al- Qaʿida there but they will give them passive support.”105 Indeed, ISI was actively exploiting the population’s distrust of the central government in order to shape the proper conditions to remove it from power. Though ISI did not initially meet Naji’s definition of a state, the group’s new political relationships positioned it to impose its dominance on the middle ground again, creating a new “zone of savagery” by persuading Iraq’s Sunnis to support the group’s state project. An Ascendant State (2010-2011) On April 19, 2010, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, were killed in a night-time raid. General Odierno called their deaths “potentially the most significant blow to [al-

100 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 101 Jomana Karadsheh, Mohammed Jamjoom, and Mohammed Tawfeeq, “Deadly Bombings Worst Iraq Attack in Two Years,” CNN, Oct 25, 2009. 102 Khalid al-Ansari, “Iraq’s Maliki Blasts Foreign Support for Bombings,” Reuters, December 8, 2009. 103 “Over 900 People on Death Row in Iraq face Imminent Execution,” Amnesty International, 4 December 2009. 104 Geoff Ziezulewicz, “Empowered by the U.S., Imprisoned by Iraqis,” Stars and Stripes, September 24, 2009. 105 Ernesto Londono, “No.2 Leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Killed,” Washington Post, October 16, 2008. 99

Qaʿida] in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency.”106 However, the death of these two individuals opened a vacancy for a new cadre of leadership to emerge within the organization. The group, comprised mostly of Iraqis, harnessed the most violent intentions of Zarqawiism and improved upon ISI’s bureaucratic structures. Three weeks after the group’s two most senior figures were killed, ISI’s shura council, ministers, governors, and senior thinkers selected Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the new Emir of ISI.107 Abu Bakr, born Ibrahim bin Awad bin Ibrahim al-Badri al-Husseini in 1971 in the city of Samarra, was an intellectual with a PhD in Islamic Studies and, like his predecessor, could claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh. These credentials made him a unique candidate to lead an organization that had long favored fighters over intellectuals. After the 2003 invasion, like many Iraqis, Abu Bakr joined the resistance and then traveled to Fallujah in 2004, where he was arrested and held in Camp Bucca. There Abu Bakr developed an extensive web of connections that would later help him administer his own organization in Diyala Province from 2005 to 2006. After the group joined the MSC, he became highly involved in AQI’s activities by assisting foreign fighters, managing media operations, and possibly serving as a messenger for Abu Umar or as a senior official on the shariʿa council.108 Despite the uncertainty of Abu Bakr’s role in the Iraq War, he had the credentials of a legitimate leader, but he needed a new framework to rebuild the organization. Fortunately for Abu Bakr, a text, entitled A Manual to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State of Iraq, outlined a new trajectory for the organization in March 2010. Published under a pseudonym on jihadist internet forums, the document candidly lays out several lessons learned from the group’s previous failures, and calls for the unification of all jihadist and nationalist groups in Iraq. But the most important aspect of this text is its reference to the coming battle as a “political and media war to the first degree.”109 This rhetoric parallels Naji’s The Management of Savagery, which outlines parallel military and media plans to advance the movement's goal of creating a state.110 While the author of this manual reflected deeply on the Islamic State’s failures, he also seems to have reflected on the original ideas that influenced the

106 “Senior Iraqi al-Qaeda Leaders ‘Killed’,” BBC, April 19, 2010. 107 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 153. 108 Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 152; William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse, 77. 109 Marc Lynch, “AQ-Iraq’s Counter Counter-Insurgency Manual,” Foreign Policy, March 17, 2010. 110 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 50. 100

group’s mission. The manual should be viewed as an appeal to the organization’s leadership to recalibrate its strategy by balancing both combat and media operations in order to expand the group’s base and create the environment for a “Jihadist Awakening.”111 There is no evidence that Abu Bakr read this text, but the actions that ISI took in subsequent years—including the creation of an extensive media apparatus and re-establishing relationships with former Baʿthists and other jihadist groups—indicate that he had some knowledge of the manual or reached the same conclusions.112 As the group improved its public image through an extensive media campaign and by employing Islamic jurisprudence, it also developed its bureaucratic structures. Critical to assisting in this effort was a group of former Baʿthists who joined ISI and rose to senior positions.113 This group’s experience in military and administrative capacities was a major asset in reforming ISI’s bureaucracy and image in Iraq,114 and placed the group in a better position to persuade Iraq’s Sunnis to support its efforts to “take control of the exhausted state or the land of savagery and establish its own state in its place.”115 Both ISI and the Sunni community needed a political partner to help advance their respective interests in the country. Through a process of "creative misunderstandings," these different groups reconciled their differences by accepting a distorted imagining of the other that aligned with their respective visions for Iraq's future. The resulting imaginings became the basis by which these two groups constructed a set of mutually understandable goals for Iraq’s future. As this process of negotiating meaning and accommodation continued between ISI and its partners, political developments in neighboring Syria provided the organization with a new opportunity to advance its state project. Managing the “Land of Savagery” (2011-2014) The “Arab Spring” took hold in Syria in March 2011, and became increasingly violent over the course of the summer. The calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Asad to resign grew in

111 Marc Lynch, “AQ-Iraq’s Counter Counter-Insurgency Manual,” Foreign Policy, March 17, 2010. 112 Indeed, ISI, and later Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, would produce an extensive media presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and others. The group also produced several print magazines available in Arabic, English, French, Turkish, and Russian. For more information on ISIS’s online presence see Malcolm Nance and Chris Sampson, Hacking ISIS: How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2017). 113 The role of former Baʿthists grew considerably after Zarqawi’s death, to the extent that a former Iraqi Army officer, known as Haji Bakr, was accused of tampering with the process of selection after Abu Umar’s death. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 154. 114 Rukmini Callimachi, “The ISIS Files: When Terrorists Run City Hall,” New York Times, April 4, 2018. 115 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery, 34 101

much of the country, but the regime responded by releasing a number of jihadists from prison to discredit the protests and provide an excuse for a violent crack-down.116 In the midst of this unrest, Abu Bakr dispatched a deputy, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, to Syria to join the uprising and to lay the groundwork for an expansion into Syria. However, the goals of Jawlani’s Jabhat al-Nusra group gradually diverged from ISI, and a division emerged in 2013, when Abu Bakr attempted to integrate Jabhat al-Nusra into the rebranded Islamic State in Iraq and al-Syria (ISIS). Jawlani’s refusal to submit to Abu Bakr, caused the latter to send another group into Eastern Syria, where ISIS was able to “fill in the cracks of the state” by establishing government services in the city of Raqqa and elsewhere.117 By supplanting the regime, the organization entered this shatter zone and “dictate[d] the terms of accommodation” to the Syrian community, imposing its political project upon them. At the same time as the group expanded, another political drama was unraveling across the border in Iraq. After the national elections of 2010, an election dispute complicated the process of forming a new government. Following nine months of negotiations, a new government was formed on December 21 with Nouri al-Maliki as the prime minister, as well as the acting minister of defense, interior, and national security. This arrangement was intended to be temporary, but many suspected that al-Maliki was consolidating his control over the security file.118 Within the Sunni community many were still uncertain about the Prime Minister, and were concerned that he would act in a sectarian way after the U.S. withdrew from the country. Their fears were realized on December 19, the day after the final group of U.S. armed personnel left Iraq. Al-Maliki accused Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, an Arab Sunni and a former Baʿthist, of playing a role in 150 terror attacks between 2005 and 2010. The Vice President promptly fled to Turkey, and was sentenced to death in absentia.119 In response to the incident, al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Accord Front boycotted the government, and relations between al-Maliki’s government and Sunnis deteriorated throughout 2012.

116 William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse, 85-86; David W. Lesch, Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 162; Carsten Wieland, A Decade of Lost Chances: Repression and Revolution from Damascus-Spring to Arab-Spring (Seattle, WA: Cune Press, 2012), 33. 117 While Abu Bakr intended to expand the amount of territory under his control, Jawlani wanted to take a greater role in the Syrian resistance, and pursue Bashar al-Asad’s ouster. Brian H. Fishman, The Master Plan, 176; Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi,” Combating Terrorism Center: Harmony Project (2005), 5. 118 “Iraq Gets a New Government,” Al-Jazeera English, 21 December 2010. 119 “Iraq Vice-President Rejects Death Sentence,” Al-Jazeera English, 10 September 2012. 102

During this period, security forces actively arrested people with alleged connections to the Baʿth Party, and demobilized the Sons of Iraq militias. The breaking point came in December 2012 when Iraqi Special Forces raided the home of the Finance Minister, Dr. Rafi al-Issawi, and arrested ten of his bodyguards with terrorism charges.120 Following these arrests anti-government protests erupted in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, Samarra, and Kirkuk. By the time this protest movement gained steam, the government lost its credibility and the political field was open for another power to assert its authority. Abu Bakr certainly watched the protests with keen interest as Iraq slowly polarized itself along sectarian lines, causing more Iraqis to accept, even if only passively, ISIS’s political program in order to topple the al-Maliki regime. This shift in popular opinion opened a new opportunity for ISIS to heavily influence the protest movement’s goals and the outcome of the unrest as partnership with the group became more acceptable. In 2013, the protest movement gradually developed into a small insurgency, with armed tribal groups rallying to resist government forces in al-Anbar province. In response the government dismissed 6,000 police officers who were seen as supporting the uprising.121 But with the security forces diminished and tribal militias resisting the government, there was little to prevent ISIS from seizing control of this “shatter zone.”122 The group targeted the security forces that continued to function by issuing an ultimatum to all ISF personnel still working for the government: swear allegiance to ISIS or be killed.123 Because of the quickly declining security situation in the country, more Iraqis were willing to work with ISIS instead of being subjected to Maliki’s sectarianism. The instability of 2013 made many in Sunni-dominated provinces desperate for political change, and, like in Syria, ISIS presented itself as the community’s best alternative to Nouri al-Maliki’s rule. On January 4, 2014, a group of ISIS fighters joined the tribes in pushing the ISF and government officials from Fallujah.124 Shaykh Ali Hatim al- Suleiman, the head of the Dulaimi Confederation, insisted in an interview that what was occuring in Iraq was a tribal revolution, adding that, “we’ve postponed fighting ISIS until we get rid of Nouri al-Maliki. As for the Anbar tribes, we consider [al-Maliki] to be more dangerous than

120 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 168-9. 121 Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory, 170. 122 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 7. 123 Sudad al-Salhy, “Al Qaeda Strikes Fear into Iraq’s Government Backed Sunni Militias,” Reuters, October 18, 2013. 124 Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 298. 103

ISIS.”125 Yet tribal shaykhs and local imams who were calling for removing the government often tacitly supported the group in order to secure their own political interests. By promoting these expedient distortions of ISIS’s goals and capabilities, local leaders contributed to creating a shared space or middle ground between ISIS and their followers, where there was a common set of goals and realities. However, by not considering the implication of supporting ISIS in its entirety, these local leaders inadvertently advanced the group’s state project. Zaydan al-Jabiri, a member of the Dulaimi confederation, said that ISIS’s “leadership became Iraqi, and their program changed completely.”126 He was partly correct, the group’s leadership became significantly more representative of the country it operated in, but its goals and methods remained largely unchanged. Since Zarqawi established Monotheism and Jihad in 2002, the organization was committed to creating an Islamic state that would “expand, dictate, and prosper.”127 What did change was the way the organization presented itself and interacted with the Iraqi community. By capitalizing on the prevailing sense that Baghdad posed an existential threat to the community and utilize religious justifications for its actions, ISIS was able to impose its vision of an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. Because the group was able to learn from its own failures, it improved its strategy of utilizing force, coercion, and co-optation to control the conditions of the middle ground, where disparate groups in Iraq met and engaged with one another to create a mutually comprehensible world. With this influence, the group was able to “dictate the terms of accommodation,” to other Sunnis and formally declare itself a state in June 2014, further complicating the vacuum of authority in the country by undermining the government’s claim to hegemonic control.128

125 Omar Ali, “Anbar Tribal Leader: Maliki is ‘More Dangerous’ Than ISIS,” Rudaw, 7 July, 2014. 126 Quoted in Joby Warrick, Black Flags, 299. 127 Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 1. 128 Richard White, The Middle Ground, x. 104

Conclusion In 2019, sixteen years after the U.S. invasion, five years after ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate, and a little more than a year since the group’s territorial defeat, Iraq has yet to reach the goal set by the George W. Bush administration “where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.”1 The central government in Baghdad in many ways seems to be at one of its weakest points since Saddam Hussein was overthrown. In the summer of 2018 the country entered a constitutional crisis due to the inability to form a new government following the May elections.2 At the same time, protests erupted in Iraq’s second largest city of Basra in July calling for an end to government inefficiency, corruption, and high unemployment. By September, dozens of protesters had been killed by Iraqi Security Forces.3 Most critically, in areas where ISIS formerly held territory reconstruction efforts have been minimal,4 and arbitrary detentions, torture, and extrajudicial executions have renewed tensions between Arab Sunni populations and Baghdad.5 As Iraq enters this new phase in its history, there are still challenges to the government’s position of power as various factions in Iraq’s parliament, international powers, and terrorist groups pursue their own political projects, undermining any single party from claiming hegemonic control and preserving a vacuum of authority in the country. Needless to say, these power dynamics will continue for the foreseeable future, and the way that scholars understand Iraq’s history following the 2003 invasion will change as new information becomes available and as conditions change in the country. This thesis is an attempt to understand the power dynamics during the Iraq War and its aftermath by incorporating the theoretical approaches of borderlands scholarship. With a framework that was heavily influenced by Richard White, Pekka Hämäläinen, James C. Scott, and others, this work demonstrates how different groups in Iraq pursued their own goals, and engaged with others by “adjusting their differences through what amounts to a process of creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings” in the shared space of the middle ground. Throughout the conflict these

1 National Security Council, “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” (National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., November 2005), 3 2 Nazli Tarzi, “Iraq’s Constitutional Crisis Reaches Boiling Point,” The Arab Weekly, July 8, 2018 3 “Iraq: Deadly Demonstrations Continue in Basra,” Al-Jazeera, September 9, 2018 4 Nick McDonell, “How to Rebuild a City: Cold, Hard Cash,” Time, December 7, 2018 5 “Iraq: Alarming Reports of More Than 3,000 People Facing Death Over Terror-Related Offences,” Amnesty International, March 21, 2018 105

different groups reconciled their divergent goals by accepting a distorted notion of the other that aligned with their respective visions for Iraq's future. The resulting reconstructions became the basis for how these groups constructed a set of mutually understandable goals, which frequently changed as groups gained or lost influence and alliances shifted.6 The framework used here placed a greater emphasis on the interconnected nature of developments at the local level. By approaching this period from the different perspectives of al- Anbar’s tribes, the U.S.-led Coalition, and al-Qaʿida in Iraq (AQI) I emphasize the importance of each group’s goals as well as how they interacted each other at the local level. With this approach this thesis has demonstrated the complex ways in which Iraqis participated in this conflict and framed their identities in this period of transition. I hope that the ideas posed in this work will be expanded upon by future scholarship—particularly as more sources are found and declassified, allowing for new voices to be incorporated into works on this topic. By connecting the Iraq War to a broader discussion on borderlands in the U.S. and elsewhere, this work integrates a new set of methods and concepts that can expand upon the modes of analysis being used when examining the Middle East. Through cooperation, conflict, and coercion the tribes of al-Anbar, the U.S.-led Coalition, and AQI pursued their own visions for the future of the country and partnered with other parties in support of those efforts. In the wake of the U.S. invasion in 2003, many local leaders in al- Anbar Province mobilized resistance groups to challenge the Coalition’s political project and reject foreign occupation. Tribal leaders were wary of both the U.S. and AQI as they were perceived to be determined to “dictate the terms of accommodation” to them, curtailing their aspirations for autonomy and greater authority in the country. But due to the tribal community’s limited resources and internal divisions tribal leaders cooperated with whichever group was perceived to support their interests in the long term. For that reason, local leaders continuously renegotiated their relationships with the Coalition and AQI, in order to play each power against the other and to improve the conditions available to them on the middle ground while these leaders and their partners continuously re-created a shared set of goals to compensate for the dynamic nature of the middle ground.

6 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650—1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), ix-x. 106

The U.S. and AQI both had more clear political objectives for the Iraq War, and attempted to manipulate developments in Iraq by manufacturing the conditions for Iraqis to engage with each other, or by forcefully imposing their political projects on the country. While both attempted to control the outcomes of the conflict and the engagements between groups on the middle ground, they undertook these actions by using different methods. The U.S. did not initially have a clear strategy for engaging and building support among Iraqis, but eventually portrayed itself in contrast to AQI’s violence, arguing that the Coalition was providing the country with the opportunity to govern itself whereas AQI would oppress it. Yet the Coalition did not understand Iraq’s political or social complexities, and operated under the assumption that the population would accept the democratic institutions it was developing. Over the course of the conflict, the Coalition was able to develop the support necessary to combat AQI, but it was unsuccessful in developing the inter-Iraqi relationships necessary to ensure the durability of an inclusive, democratic Iraq that could act as an ideological ally to the neoconservative U.S. administration. Conversely, AQI pursued its project of creating an Islamic state in Iraq by trying to “polarize” the country. This strategy was intended to create a violent sectarian civil war that would force the country’s population to choose between supporting the mujahidin or its enemies. In this way the group attempted to manipulate the conditions in Iraq to leave the country’s Sunni population with no other option but to support its political project. While the group had some initial successes because of the passionate rejection of the occupation, its excessive use of violence created an atmosphere of fear that eventually pushed Anbaris to cooperate with the Coalition. After several years of diminishing influence on the middle ground, the group changed its strategy and improved its public image by presenting itself as a champion of the Sunni population. Despite the group’s doctrinaire approach to interacting with others in the country, the organization often was able to advance its project by utilizing force, coercion, and co-optation to control the conditions of the middle ground to create an Islamic state in 2014. There is no telling how current developments in Iraq or Syria will unfold in the coming weeks, months, and years as political actors continue to compete for power and influence. But in the absence of a single political authority and with the penetration of various powers in both countries, these groups will certainly continue to meet one another in the middle ground to

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advance their interests and to fill the vacuum of authority with political projects that are favorable to their own visions for the future in Iraq and Syria.

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