The liberation of towns from the Islamic State has had the surprising effect on my Iraqi friends of making them more despondent than they were before. When they are asked when things will turn around, they shrug and say Allah karim, akin to the English expression \u201cwhen pigs fly.\u201d\u009d Just after Sinjar was \u201cliberated,\u201d\u009d my former student from there sent me pictures of his family\u2019s Friday lunch spread before and after they devoured it, labeling them Sinjar \u201cbefore liberation\u201d\u009d and \u201cafter liberation.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Iraq is now face-to-face with the classic \u201cday after\u201d\u009d dilemma. Many of its towns are demolished and there is no money to rebuild. There is no agreement on which groups should secure and govern the areas and who gets to go back. The most visceral and volatile barrier is the newfound distrust among the local populations of liberated areas, who see one another as collaborators, bystanders or victims of the Islamic State. Left unattended, these \u201cday after\u201d\u009d dynamics will \u201d\u201d and have already \u201d\u201d lead to internecine conflict and political gridlock that will undermine battlefield victories, similar to what happened in 2010 when military successes of the Sahwa, or Sunni Awakening militias, against Al Qaeda in Iraq were squandered due to a lack of lasting national and local political deals.<\/p>\n
This is evident in Iraq\u2019s disputed post-IS territories, where both the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil and the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad feel they have greater claims than ever before….<\/p>\n