The 'Sons of Iraq,' abandoned by their American allies

Working with the Sahwa in a sense became a two-way aid program. The coalition delivered small monthly payments in return for the much larger dividends of safety for U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi civilian population.

What to do about the Sahwa in the long term was complicated. In 2007-08, I was part of a small office in Baghdad chartered to work with representatives of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on how to reconcile with the Sahwa and integrate them into Iraq’s post-surge environment. We understood that unless the Sahwa and their Sunni support base could be integrated in mainstream Iraq, our battle successes would be short-lived.

The dilemmas were immense. First, the movement was almost exclusively Sunni while the government in Baghdad and its political support mechanisms were largely Shiite. Second, while the Sahwa had “reconciled” to a large degree with the U.S. by turning against al Qaeda, it had not made such a commitment toward the Iraqi government, which many Sahwa saw as an agent of Iran. For its part, the Iraqi government viewed thousands of armed Sunnis as a strategic threat (this view has not diminished). Most of Iraq’s senior security leadership wanted no part of any militia, Sahwa or otherwise.