Unwilling to send US troops back to Iraq, Washington is trying to persuade armed Sunni factions and tribal figures to fight Islamic State militants in an echo of the “Awakening” movement that drove al Qaeda from the country six years ago.
“There is a lot of traffic right now,” James Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat who was US ambassador to Iraq from 2010-2012 and maintains close ties to the government in Baghdad.
“There were meetings in Arbil. There were meetings in Amman,” he said, referring to talks between tribal groups and US officials in the capitals of the relatively neutral Iraqi province of Kurdistan and neighbouring Jordan.
The plan is far from easy, since many Sunnis regard the Awakening as a failure and a betrayal and see the Sunni Islamic State’s sweep into predominantly Sunni northern and western Iraq as the lesser of two evils, despite its mass killings.
US and Iraqi officials say it is not a rehash of the Awakening but will incorporate Sunnis into a “National Guard,” a security force intended to decentralise power from Baghdad, addressing Sunni demands to stop oppression from the majority Shi’ite security forces.
Past promises by the Americans and Iraqi officials to integrate the minority into the Iraqi state in return for its help were never realised. Instead, the movement’s leaders found themselves hunted by both jihadists and the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government.
Recent US and Iraqi air strikes on Islamic State targets have not helped since they are hard to distinguish between and local leaders say the latter have hit residential areas, even after a recent government call to avoid civilians.
Yet a host of talks are going on between US and Iraqi officials and Iraqi Sunni groups, security officials from Iraq and the US say.
“Americans of all provenances are talking to all kinds of Iraq Sunnis as we speak,” a western diplomat in the region said on condition of anonymity. “Amman is full of these guys.”
Sunni militants who fought US troops and the Shi’ite led government after Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown are also being approached.
Talking to insurgent groups who killed US troops will be contentious in the United States as well as in Iraq, where some of the Shi’ite majority are concerned about Washington supporting Sunni militants.