The Antichrist and Shiism (Revelation 13:18)

Iraq and the dead-end road to political resolution

Over the past two years the core foundation of the Iraqi Shiite camp was shaken more than once following the impact of events and alterations occurring in the political scene and balance of power among political players, diminishing the role of some and opening the door to newcomers to the scene. At the time, the results that granted the former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki the parliamentary majority and the constitutional right to form the government were considered a victory for the new Shiite political forces in face of the traditional religious authorities.

However, the anti-coalition formed by the remaining political and religious parties and who pushed toward depriving al-Maliki from a third term, partly succeeded in its goals by excluding al-Maliki from the prime minister position, and thus re-shuffled the cards inside the Shiite camp, and sparked a crisis whose chapters continued to follow. Also, the representation of Shiite political forces inside the Iraqi parliament following that election established a situation of malfunction and imbalance in the political system, at least inside the Shiite camp, caused by the difference between the real weights of the political forces in the street and their representative quotas in the parliament. And perhaps, this introduction can play the role of a starting point to keep track of the political movement that stands behind the recent protests, in particular Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers.

The Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared himself after the election results the spearhead of the attack on al-Maliki, in a turn against the ambiguous alliance between them, whose signs started to show before the election. al-Sadr entering the line and fiercely taking the lead of the battle to exclude al-Maliki necessitated a quick Iranian intervention to contain the repercussions of the crisis and to prevent any further rifts inside the Shiite campaign, thus sacrificing the constitutional right that grants its first Iraqi ally Nouri al-Maliki the right to form a government, and declaring its support for the fragile coalition leading to the nomination of Haider al-Abadi, the nominee of the Islamic Da’wa party for the prime minister position. However the anti-Maliki Shiite coalition led by al-Sadr, considered that the priority was to dismantle the Pro-Maliki system from the Iraqi official bodies since it embodies the corruption and mismanagement in the state, a system which al-Maliki set and developed since he first became the Iraqi prime minister in 2006, by allocating position of power and privileges in different sections of the state apparatus for his allies and those close to him. Moreover, the significant decline in oil prices, that represents almost the only source of income in the country, the resulting aggravation of the economic problems, a budget deficit reaching 25%, and the fall of Mosul in the hand of the Islamic state in a shocking scene fanned the flame of the official and popular anger toward all what was happening, increased the tension among the different parties, and contributed to the charged atmosphere which led to the recent protests earlier this year. Before the February 2016 protests, the Prime-Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi adopted a neutral stance toward the polarized state between al-Maliki and his allies on one hand, and the opponents camp led by al-Sadr on the other. However, under the pretext of responding to the protests in the streets, his position became closer to that of al-Sadr camp, the thing that helped reaching consensus over the formation of a government of technocrats from the competent elite in charge of pulling the country out of the crisis.

Although this government received the support and the endorsement of several religious and political parties, most notably the Shiite Islamic Marja’ Ali al-Sistani, al-Maliki, and Moqtada al-Sadr, the Sadrist movement leader, who ended the two-weeks-strike carried by his supporters front of the gates of the Green Zone, however it has angered other parties of the front that backed al-Abadi for the Prime Minister position, especially the Islamic Supreme Council headed by Ammar al-Hakim, who own a large parliamentary bloc in the current Iraqi parliament.

The rift within the Shiite camp deepened after al-Abadi failed to pass the technocrat government, both in its first form or after the subsequent modifications which made it a multiparty technocrat government as an answer to al-Hakim demands. The religious authority in Najaf, in what many observers interpreted as a reflection of its frustration and a retreat from endorsing al-Abadi, announced that it will no longer give its weekly political statement regarding current affairs. Also, al-Abadi’s hesitation and his failed attempt to satisfy all parties has backfired.

As for al-Sadr, and in attempt to dominate the Shiite popular street and proclaiming himself its ultimate leader, he appeased the demands of the recent protest movement to the point of hyperbole populism and extremism which does not leave any space for political action, and it is impossible for al-Abadi to adopt or keep up with.

Moreover al-Sadr was able to attract a good portion of secular and nationalist Iraqis, now that his differences with Iran has surfaced, coupled with his history in resisting the American occupation, especially since he worked hard in the last two years on presenting himself as an Iraqi nationalist leader who went past the sectarian limits, In spite of all the show-off enormity in his quest to lead the protest movement. Besides, the course of events shows a possible imminent convergence between al-Maliki and al-Hakim, which could lead to an agreement pushing toward removing al-Abadi and replacing him with another candidates whose political problem is limited to the preparation for the 2018 elections, and so al-Abadi and his Allies’ struggling attempt, which many parties felt threaten by in the past two years, will be buried once and for all.

In addition to all this, the preparations for the liberation of Fallujah, which aimed to dismantle the most important stronghold of Sunni Jihadist in Iraq, has turned into a symbol for Shiite and national alignment, giving the new Shiite militias entering the Iraqi scene to reap more popularity and legitimacy for its political and military role, which means new Iranian power in the Iraqi scene due to this groups direct subordination to Iran, whether by strengthening the presence of these militias in the scene, or by Iranian pro-forces taking over various states agencies, especially since the Popular Mobilization Forces, which was formed from Shiite militant factions has been adopted as a reserve Military force under the government’s command.

The political Shiite class, in the first years that followed the US invasion of Iraq, took advantage of the international support it has gained, in addition to the financial receipts that flowed from Oil sales, and was able to provide through the new political system, mechanisms to contain and absorb wide Shiite social sectors, however, under the weight of international changes, new players storming the Iraqi scene, the escalating financial crisis, and the popular fidgetiness caused by the performance of this class. These mechanisms became weakened and unable to perform its previous role. Now, the new Iraqi generations which were not around in the years when the profits were distributed have stormed the squares, the streets and even the “Green Zone” in an effort to secure their own destinies in a country is begging for its own fate to be secured.

The Antichrist Appeals to the Iraqi Masses

Iraq rejects proposal to register Shia militia as party

Country’s official electoral commission rejects calls to allow Hashd al-Shaabi to register as party in advance of polls

By Ali Jawad
BAGHDAD

Iraq’s official electoral commission on Sunday rejected proposals to allow the Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella group of pro-government Shia militias, to register itself as a political party in advance of elections slated for next year.

The decision came one day after prominent Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr declared that the country’s next government would be a “government of militias” if the Hashd al-Shaabi were allowed to field candidates in provincial council and parliamentary polls slated for 2017 and 2018 respectively.
In a Sunday statement, the commission said it had based its decision on the fact that the Hashd al-Shaabi constituted a “military organization with links to the [Iraqi] security agencies”.

Iraq’s Political Parties Law, it went on to explain, which was ratified by parliament last year, prohibited the registration of “military or paramilitary organizations” as political parties.

On July 20, the electoral commission began the registration process for political parties that planned to participate in the upcoming elections.

According to Hashd al-Shaabi spokesman Karim al-Nouri, the militia group’s primary responsibility at present was to pursue the fight against the Daesh terrorist organization, which continues to hold large swathes of territory in war-torn Iraq.

“Our presence in the battlefield today is to confront Daesh,” al-Nouri told Anadolu Agency on Sunday.

“We didn’t want to arm ourselves, but the country’s dire security situation forced us to go from a civilian organization to a military one,” he said.

He added: “Several Hashd al-Shaabi leaders, including Hadi al-Amiri [a former Iraqi transport minister and current commander of the Hashd-affiliated Al-Badr Organization] is basically a politician, not a military figure.”

“Our main concern now is pursuing the fight against Daesh,” al-Nouri asserted.

Iraq has suffered a devastating security vacuum since mid-2014, when Daesh captured the northern city of Mosul along with vast swathes of territory in the country’s northern and western regions.
In recent months, the Iraqi army — backed by U.S.-led airstrikes and its allies on the ground, including the Hashd al-Shaabi — has since managed to retake much of the territory lost earlier to Daesh.

Nevertheless, the terrorist group remains in firm control of several parts of the country, including Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

Antichrist Ousts Defense Minister

Iraqi parliament dismisses defense minister

PressTV

The Iraqi parliament has dismissed Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi, who was recently embroiled in a corruption case.

Two unnamed lawmakers told AFP that the Iraqi parliamentarians voted on Thursday to withdraw their confidence from Obeidi by 142 votes to 102 in a secret ballot, while 18 abstained in the 328-seat legislature.

The no-confidence vote came weeks after a bitter feud that erupted between Obeidi and parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi over graft allegations.

On August 1, Obeidi went to the legislature to answer allegations of wasting billions of dollars in public funds and weakening the country’s armed forces in their fight against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

During the questioning, however, he accused Juburi and several lawmakers of corruption.

Obeidi insisted that he was being challenged in retribution for his rejection of corruption, accusing the parliamentarians of seeking to blackmail him in order to pass corrupt deals, including a $1-billion catering contract, a $2.8-billion accord for armored vehicles, and a $421-million pact for US military Humvee vehicles.

On August 9, the Iraqi judiciary closed a corruption case against Juburi, citing a lack of evidence to proceed further.

The developments come as Iraqi Prime Minster Haider al-Abadi has faced calls to reform the country’s political structure in a bid to tackle corruption.

Earlier this year, the parliament was deadlocked for weeks over the premier’s efforts to reshuffle the cabinet.

Iraqi citizens also held sit-ins, called by firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, inside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone aimed at keeping up pressure on the government to change ministers.

This is while the Iraqi army troops and allied volunteer forces are conducting large-scale military operations against the Daesh militants, who have been controlling swathes of land in the northern and western parts of the country since 2014.

The Iraqi army is gearing up for a major offensive in late September to purge Daesh from Mosul, the country’s second city. Iraqi forces have managed to wrest control of several areas in the southern parts of the city, among them the town of Qayyarah.

The Antichrist and His Sectarian Army (Rev 13:18)

Sunni fear grows as PMU participation in Mosul battle confirmed

Al Monitor 

BAGHDAD — The crisis over the participation of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in the battle for the liberation of Mosul, which will begin soon, has resurfaced. But this time the National Security Council officially agreed July 31 on the PMU participation in this battle. Iran and the United States also support the Iraqi government’s decision to include the PMU in the Mosul battle. US Ambassador to Iraq Stuart E. Jones said Aug. 22 that the participation of the PMU in the Mosul battle is solely an Iraqi decision. Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, also supported the participation of the PMU in his meeting with the Iraqi parliament speaker, Salim al-Jabouri, on Aug. 21.

Sunni politicians objected to this approval because they do not want the units to take part. On Aug. 8, the press office of the head of the Mutahidoun bloc, Osama al-Nujaifi, issued a press statement talking about a meeting in Nujaifi’s office between the Sunni coalition and Jones on the same day and discussing several issues, mainly the Sunni stance regarding the PMU participation in the Mosul liberation battle.

The convening leaders of the Sunni blocs asserted that they disapprove of the PMU participation in the battle, claiming that the citizens of Mosul refuse this participation due to the violations committed by factions from the PMU during the liberation of other regions, such as Salahuddin and Fallujah.
The leaders believe that “this participation will send out bad messages to the citizens of Ninevah province and might be considered propaganda for the Islamic State [IS].” Nujaifi repeated his objection to the PMU participation in the Mosul battle in his meeting Aug. 21 with the Kuwait ambassador to Iraq.

Despite the objections to the PMU participation and the accusations against them, the leaders of these forces still insist on participating and could care less about the objectors.

In a quick response to the stance of the Mutahidoun bloc in this regard, member of the PMU Opinion Committee Karim al-Nuri described the meeting between the Sunni politicians and Jones as “shameful,” and said, “The PMU are essential forces that will certainly participate in the Mosul battle.”

In a press statement published Aug. 8 on the official website of the PMU, Nuri said, “The commander in chief of the armed forces, Haider al-Abadi, has decided on the PMU participation in the Mosul liberation battle as it is a military formation affiliated with the Iraqi security institution, and no foreign parties should intervene in the country’s internal affairs. The United States and any other parties cannot forbid the PMU from participating in the battle.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) had called on the Iraqi army commanders July 31 to forbid militias, i.e., the PMU, that have a dangerous record of violations from participating in military battles in Mosul. HRW wrote, “In order for the government to abide by all possible measures to protect civilians and ensure the respect of the rules of war, it must stop these militias from participating in the Mosul battle.”

In this framework, Joe Stork, the deputy head of the Middle East Department at HRW, said in the same report, “Militias which constitute part of the PMU have committed heinous violations several times on a large scale sometimes, most recently in Fallujah. There were no consequences to their actions despite the government’s promises to launch an investigation. Iraqi leaders must spare civilians in Mosul the huge danger of militias that have a record of violations.”

The PMU participation in the Mosul liberation battle is not the only thing angering Sunnis, who were even more distressed to find out that leader of the Iranian Quds Force Qasem Soleimani might also participate in the battle. Mosul citizens are increasingly concerned about possible violations against them.

PMU spokesman Ahmad al-Asadi said in a statement July 30 that he hopes Soleimani would be present in the Mosul liberation battle because he has largely contributed to the battles against IS. He added that the PMU is so eager to have Soleimani participate that their desire might outweigh the will of the Iraqi government and the citizens of Mosul in regard to the presence of an Iranian official in the battles.

Apparently, Sadrist movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr also refused the participation of the PMU and said Aug. 8, in response to a question by one of his followers, “The Mosul liberation battle must be fully in the hands of the Iraqi security forces. We will not accept for the occupiers [United States] or any other party [PMU] to interfere.”

Sunni politicians and civilians in regions under IS control will not rest as long as there are forces that they think are out there to get them rather than free them, and as long as some armed factions are taking action without the knowledge of the Iraqi government. The latter will not be able to control all activities or forbid all human rights violations.

In case the PMU do participate in the Mosul liberation battle, it is very likely to result in human rights violations and clashes between the Shiite units and the Sunni National Forces that are led by Ninevah province’s former governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi. These factors are enough to obstruct the course of the battle.

The Sectarian Antichrist (Revelation 13:18)

 
No freedom if sectarianism alive


The Jordanian Times 

Iraqis in Jordan are worried about the fall of Mosul, within the next few weeks, as announced by Baghdad.

The majority of Iraqis here are Shiites; they heard about the atrocities committed by Shiite militias against Sunni families in Fallujah and Tikrit following the liberation of villages from Daesh.
Living in a Sunni ambience in Jordan, Iraqi Shiites issued statements on May 23, 2016, against the rape and pillaging of Fallujah Sunni women by one Shiite militia called Saraya Ansar Al Aqeeda (Supporters of the Creed), led by Jalal All Din Al Saghir, who is member of Hashd Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Units, allowed by the Iraqi prime minister to be led by Qassem Suleimani, the notorious Iranian general who commands the Quds Brigades within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Mosul liberation battle will create nearly 1 million refugees, as well as new cases of rape and pillage by the Hashd Shaabi, which does not abide by the discipline of regular army officers.
The ghost of the atrocities in Fallujah against Sunnis haunts these days the Iraqis in Amman who will feel the stigma of shame talking to their Sunni hosts.

Following the fall of Mosul to Daesh in June 2014, and the sudden surrender of four Iraqi army divisions, the supreme spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites in Najaf, Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, endorsed the formation of militias to guard holy places and protect Karbala shrines.

They total roughly 60,000 fighters distributed among Hizbollah-Iraq, Liwa Al Muntazar, Saraya Ashuraa and Saraya Ansar Al Aqeeda, which is the most vicious of all militias.

Its leader disobeyed Ayatollah Sistani and sent some of his fighters to the civil war in Syria to support Lebanon’s Hizbollah there.

As a mosque preacher, Saghir managed to issue many religious edicts (fatwa) to his followers to challenge the traditional hierarchy of clerics like Muqtada Al Sadr or Ammar Al Hikim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

A defeat of Daesh in Mosul will be welcome news for many Jordanians and Iraqis. This stigma had marred our religion for centuries to come.

But rabid sectarianism will dominate Iraq and adjacent regions if a repeat of what was committed in Fallujah against Sunnis last year at the hands of the Popular Mobilisation Units militias is allowed to happen now by the revenge-hungry Ansar Al Aqeeda, who want to have a second foray of pillage, plunder and torture of Sunnis.

The Antichrist And Iraqi Sectarianism (Revelation 13:18)

How Saddam Hussein’s Execution Contributed to the Rise of Sectarianism in the Middle East

He was a brutal tyrant, but he remains an important symbol of strength for disillusioned Sunnis throughout the region.

By Mohamad BazziTwitter

In the predawn hours of December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein stood calmly at the gallows, as one of his three executioners—men in black ski masks and leather jackets—prepared to slip a thick yellow noose around his neck. Hussein stepped toward the platform that would soon open up beneath him.

Suddenly, the room erupted in taunts and Shiite religious chants. The Shiite guards and activists seized the moment to confront a dictator who had inflicted so much suffering on the Shiites of Iraq. As soon as the noose was around Hussein’s neck, they chanted in unison, “O God bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.”

Several men recited, “Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada,” referring to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who had led a rebellion against US troops in Iraq.

“Muqtada,” Hussein said, smiling, adding sarcastically, “Is this your manhood?”

“Go to hell,” one man yelled.

“Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr,” another group chanted. Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr had been one of the Shiite world’s leading theologians and a founder of the Dawa Party, the Shiite Islamist group to which many of Iraq’s new leaders belonged. He had been executed by Hussein in 1980, as the Baathist regime prepared for war with Iran. As a martyr, Sadr would become a symbol of Shiite defiance and resistance to Hussein’s rule.

An Iraqi prosecutor pleaded with the hecklers: “I beg you. The man is facing execution. Please stop.”

To Sunnis, the video of his execution showed that an angry, lawless mob of Shiites killed Hussein.

The room quieted briefly, and Hussein recited the single-line Muslim profession of faith, the shahadah (“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God”). As he repeated it, he was hanged.

Hussein’s execution was videotaped and an edited version was broadcast by Iraqi state TV without sound. But this scene was also captured on grainy cell-phone video, with sound, and that video was broadcast throughout the Arab world. To Sunnis, the video showed that an angry, lawless mob of Shiites killed Hussein. The dictator’s calm, defiant responses to the taunting made him seem like the embodiment of law and order—at a time when Iraq desperately needed a way out of chaos. The impact of these images and sounds—of witnesses taunting Hussein in his final moments, before the dawn call to prayer—should not be underestimated: the execution created a new schism in Sunni-Shiite relations.

Aside from the leaked video, the government of then–Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made another fateful mistake: it executed Hussein at the start of Eid al-Adha, one of the two holiest Muslim holidays. Typically, Middle Eastern regimes pardon prisoners around the holiday. By refusing to delay the execution, Maliki added another insult to the Sunni world.

Hussein’s execution cemented his status as a Sunni and Arab nationalist martyr. Nine years later, he remains an important symbol for Iraq’s disillusioned Sunni Arab minority. His legacy as a supposedly strong leader who kept Iraq together, by brutal force, also reverberates for Sunnis in the wider Middle East, which is wracked by sectarian conflict and stalled revolutions.

* * *

Under Hussein’s rule, Iraq became one of the richest and most developed countries in the Arab world.

Saddam Hussein rose to power in the 1970s on a wave of nationalist, revolutionary sentiment that had been sweeping the Middle East for years. It was a time of upheaval, in which the political and feudal elites—the allies of the old European colonial powers—were losing their grip. In Egypt, a young military officer named Gamal Abdel Nasser had led a revolt against the British-backed king in 1952. Nasser’s revolution inspired a wave of rebellions in the 1950s and ’60s, stretching from Libya to Syria to Iraq.

By the early 1970s, Hussein oversaw the seizure of Iraqi oil assets from foreign companies just as oil prices were beginning to rise sharply. After nationalizing the oil industry, Hussein used the profits to modernize Iraq’s countryside by distributing land to farmers and mechanizing agricultural production. He also led a campaign to expand education and healthcare; build roads and highways; and create new industries. Iraq became one of the richest and most developed countries in the Arab world. But Hussein also ruthlessly suppressed all opposition and dragged his country into two successive—and spectacularly destructive—wars with its neighbors. Under his rule, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were arrested, tortured, executed, or disappeared. His ruling Sunni Arab minority persecuted the country’s Shiites and ethnic Kurds.

For much of his reign, and especially after he invaded Iran in 1980, Hussein was backed by the United States, Europe, and most Arab governments. Hussein had feared that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, would inspire the Shiite majority in Iraq to rise up against Baathist rule. During the eight-year war with Iran, the United States and other Western powers supplied Hussein with weapons and military intelligence that prolonged the fighting. It was only after he invaded Kuwait in 1990 that the West turned against him. Despite a disastrous loss to a US-led alliance in the 1991 Gulf War, Hussein clung to power and survived more than a decade of United Nations sanctions and weapons inspections.

After the 2003 US invasion, Hussein became the first modern Arab leader to be deposed by a foreign power. After a trial marred by charges of US interference and procedural flaws, an Iraqi court convicted him of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging. That earned Hussein another distinction: as the first modern Arab ruler to be tried and executed for his crimes.

In a region filled with US-allied dictators, many Arabs admired Hussein for his willingness to challenge the world’s sole superpower and his support for the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel. Arabs also respected Hussein for his rhetoric of “liberating” Jerusalem and restoring old Arab glories, much like his hero, the 12th-century Muslim conqueror Salahuddin. “For a long time, Saddam was more popular in the Arab world than he was inside Iraq. That’s because most Arabs did not grasp the full extent of his cruelty,” Zuheir al Jezairy, a prominent Iraqi writer and journalist, told me after Hussein’s execution. “To them, he was an Arab leader who stood up to the West. To Iraqis, he was a tyrant.”

* * *

The vengeful and sectarian way in which Hussein was killed deepened the civil war that had been raging inside Iraq since early 2006—Sunni violence against Shiites, followed by Shiite reprisals. And if there wasn’t a deep-rooted Sunni-Shiite rift in the region before Hussein’s hanging, there certainly was one after. In the days following his execution, Hussein emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and defiant as his Shiite executioners tormented him. “No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed,” then–Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “They turned him into a martyr.”

Sunnis framed the hasty execution as an act of sectarian vengeance, shrouded in political theater and overseen by the American occupation. In several Arab capitals, Sunni protesters railed against the United States, Israel, and “Persians”—a code word for Shiites. Sunnis across the region saw the United States and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government as killing off the last vestiges of Arab nationalism. Although Hussein was once a dependable ally of the West, by the 1990s he was among the few Arab leaders who defied the United States and European powers, at least rhetorically. In the Sunni view, America and its allies eradicated the idea of a glorious Arab past without offering any replacement for it, other than sectarianism.

In Beirut in the days after Hussein’s execution, I watched as his killing heightened a sectarian battle between Hezbollah and its Sunni and Christian rivals.

I was in Beirut during Hussein’s execution. In the days that followed, I watched as his killing heightened a sectarian battle between Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese political movement and militia supported by Iran, and its Sunni and Christian rivals, who were supported by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

A week after the execution, hundreds of members of the Lebanese Baath Party marched in a Sunni neighborhood behind a symbolic coffin representing that of Hussein. They offered a funeral prayer and plastered walls with posters praising “Saddam the martyr.” The posters showed Hussein standing up in court in Baghdad, photoshopped against an image of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. “May God damn America and its spies,” one banner draped across a major Beirut thoroughfare declared. “Our condolences to the nation for the assassination of Saddam Hussein, and victory to the Iraqi resistance.”

Lebanon was a case study in blowback from the Iraq War. By January 2007, Lebanese Sunnis felt besieged. Fearing that the sectarian bloodbath in Baghdad would spread to Lebanon, and fearing as well Iran’s regional power, they began to lash out at Shiites. As they confronted Hezbollah supporters during a nationwide strike in late January, some Sunnis waved posters and banners praising Hussein. It was a rich contradiction: Sunnis aligned with the United States carrying posters of Hussein, a dictator that America had spent billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives to depose. But in other ways, it was also a declaration of sectarian war: Hussein had killed hundreds of thousands of Shiites in Iraq, where many Lebanese Shiites have relatives, and the two communities—Lebanese and Iraqi Shiites—have had close ties for decades.

And in death, a new narrative emerged about the Iraqi dictator: that he had blocked Iranian dominance of the region, and had stood up to Israel. “Hussein, as Iraq’s ruler, was an iron curtain that prevented Iranian influence from reaching into the Arab world,” wrote Bilal Khubbaiz, a political analyst, in Al Hayat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper. He also praised Hussein as “a formidable player in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

One of Hussein’s legacies is the marriage of convenience between Baath Party officers and Sunni militants of ISIS.

Saudi Arabia had sought to isolate Hussein after he invaded Kuwait in 1990. But the House of Saud feared an Iranian-allied Shiite government in Baghdad even more. The Saudi press went out of its way to praise Hussein after his death: Saudi-owned outlets published paeans eulogizing Hussein, with one even vowing revenge against Maliki, who had signed the death warrant. “O believers, prepare the gun that will avenge Hussein,” said the unsigned poem published in several newspapers. “The criminal who signed the execution order without valid reason cheated us on our celebration day. How beautiful it will be when the bullet goes through the heart of him who betrayed Arabism.”

* * *

Today, Hussein leaves a new legacy in Iraq: a marriage of convenience between former officers of his Baath Party and Sunni militants like those of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The jihadists assumed the most prominent role as they swept through northern and central Iraq in mid- to late-2014. But they were able to capture large swaths of territory from the Iraqi government thanks to an alliance with a network of former Hussein regime loyalists who had deep ties to Sunni tribes in cities like Mosul and Tikrit. After taking control of Mosul and other Sunni cities, ISIS leaders pushed aside the ex-Baathists or absorbed them into the group’s ranks.

The ex-Baathists, who include former intelligence officers and elite Republican Guard troops, coalesced in 2007—soon after the Shiite-led government in Baghdad executed Hussein—as a group called the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order (named after a Sufi order). The group’s leader is Izzat al-Douri, who was Hussein’s right-hand man and the most wanted member of the ousted Baathist regime to remain at large since the US invasion of Iraq. The Naqshbandi Order sought to counter Iranian influence, tap into the disillusionment of Iraq’s Sunni community, and try to restore Sunni rule over the country. Soon after ISIS militants captured Mosul in June 2014, with help from the Naqshbandi Order and its tribal allies, Douri issued an audio message praising the Sunni militants and urging Iraqis to join the fight. “Join the ranks of the rebels who liberated half the country,” he said. “The liberation of Baghdad is around the corner. Everyone should contribute to complete the liberation of the beloved country, because there is no honor or dignity without it.”

After US forces ousted Hussein’s regime in April 2003, several top Baathist officials, including Douri, went into hiding and began to mastermind the Sunni-led insurgency. In the fall of 2003, American officials said Douri was involved in recruiting foreign jihadists and funding attacks on US troops. That assessment was based on accounts from captured members of Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda–linked group that carried out a series of suicide bombings against US forces and Iraqi civilians. US officials said Douri and other ex-Baathist leaders then fled to neighboring Syria, where they reportedly worked with Syrian intelligence operatives to reestablish elements of the Baath Party within Iraq. After Hussein’s execution, the ex-Baathists became more active through the Naqshbandi Order. Some ex-Baathists also enhanced their alliance with the Sunni militants of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which would later morph into ISIS.

Both the Baathists and Islamic militants were able to cultivate support from ordinary Sunnis who were alienated by the sectarian policies of Nouri al-Maliki, the Dawa Party leader who served as Iraq’s prime minister from 2006 to 2014. In recent months, investigations by several news organizations, including The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and Reuters, revealed that former Iraqi Baathists are playing a key role in ISIS, especially as leaders of its shadowy military and security apparatuses. Because the Baathists have deep social, financial, and cultural ties to many areas that are now under ISIS control, it will be difficult for the Iraqi government to dislodge the militants from those areas. And even when Baghdad has recaptured territory, the militants and their Baathist allies have undermined the central government’s efforts to restore order.

Since the new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, took office in September 2014, Sunni political leaders have made several demands on him: amnesty for tens of thousands of Sunnis imprisoned—in many cases without judicial review—by Maliki’s regime in the name of fighting terrorism; greater power in the new government; an end to aerial bombardment of Sunni towns; and a more significant role in the Iraqi security forces, which Maliki had cleansed of many senior Sunni officers.

Today, Shiite militias often take the lead in the fight against ISIS and other jihadists, and in the process are further alienating the Sunni community. Many Sunnis cringe at the memories evoked by the reestablishment of Shiite militias, which carried out widespread kidnappings, torture, and killing of Sunnis during the sectarian war that raged in Iraq from 2005 through 2008. In a February 2015 report, Human Rights Watch found that Shiite militias escalated their abuses in Sunni areas as they carried out new offensives against ISIS. The militias have been accused of forcing thousands of Sunnis out of their homes, kidnapping or detaining hundreds of residents, and summarily executing 72 civilians in Diyala province.

After his ignoble death by hanging, Hussein remains a potent symbol that inflames sectarian tensions. He was buried in a tomb in his birthplace of Awja, a town near the city of Tikrit and about 100 miles north of Baghdad. While the mausoleum was not as lavish as the ostentatious palaces Hussein had built for himself, the site was intended by his fellow tribesmen to burnish his legacy as a nationalist and pan-Arab hero. Hundreds of people toured the tomb each week until the Iraqi government closed it to the public in 2012. Posters of Hussein covered the mausoleum, photographs of different stages of his life lined the walls, and a large Iraqi flag was draped on his grave.

In March 2015, Hussein’s tomb was reduced to rubble as Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias fought to regain control of Tikrit from ISIS militants. Months earlier, worried that Shiite militias or ISIS would destroy the tomb, members of Hussein’s tribe had moved his remains to a secret location. But the destruction of his tomb became another chapter in the sectarian war of images, with Sunnis blaming Shiite militias even though ISIS may have damaged it just as badly. The militias planted their flags in the rubble, along with pictures of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Soleimani has led Iran’s campaign to stabilize the Baghdad government; train and equip thousands of Shiite militia fighters; and coordinate efforts to recapture territory from ISIS. On some walls in Tikrit, Persian graffiti read, “Khomeini’s army defeated ISIS.” It was a message from the Shiite militias: in death, the legacy of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini would outlast that of Saddam Hussein.

But in reality, Hussein’s legacy will continue to haunt Iraq as long as Sunni grievances are unresolved, and the country’s new Shiite rulers resist sharing power with the Sunni minority. At the same time, Sunnis need to move beyond pining for the glory days of Hussein and his brutal Baathist regime—a reign that set Iraq on a path of destruction.