As ISIS Is Driven From Iraq, Sunnis Remain Alienated
Hamid al-Mutlaq, who represents Karmah in Parliament, said the government was more focused on working with Iran
and Iranian-armed Shiite militias than helping Sunnis rebuild.
Under Mr. Maliki, who was prime minister from 2006 to 2014, many Sunnis who had reclaimed
their jobs were purged from the military and government, some for the second time.
David L. Phillips, a former State Department adviser who has worked on Iraq for 30
years, said Sunnis had failed to organize as effectively as Shiites and Kurds.
Iranian-trained Shiite militias are part of Iraq’s armed forces
and have battled Islamic State militants since they seized nearly a third of Iraq in 2014.
Sheikh Ahmed said that We won’t tolerate that kind of foreign interference on top of everything else,
But even Sunnis opposed to the Kurdish vote were alarmed when Iraqi forces conducted
military maneuvers with Iranian troops inside Iran along the Iraq border.
With Iraq’s government now controlled by Shiites, and the Kurds governing their
own autonomous area in the north, the Sunnis are in a political no-man’s land.
" Ms. Fantappie said. that The Abadi government has never needed the Sunnis more than now,