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The departure of all remaining US forces from Iraq in December 2011 quickly gave rise to the scenario that many had feared: an explosion of sectarian violence that threatened to drag the country back to the darkest days of the insurgency in 2007. Iraq’s deteriorating security situation was further compounded by political failure in Baghdad, with the sectarian divisions already apparent in the country at large finally spreading to the heart of government. Just one day after the final US troops crossed the border into Kuwait, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (a Shi’a Muslim) issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, plunging postreconstruction Iraq into its worst political crisis yet. Hashemi denied the charge that he had operated a hit squad responsible for murdering government officials and fled to Kurdistan, where he is beyond the reach of the Iraqi security forces. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who leads the Sunni Iraqiya parliamentary group of which Hashemi is a member, reacted by accusing Maliki of leading Iraq back into dictatorship. In BMI’s view, Maliki’s actions demonstrate that he is increasingly inclined to resolve disputes through executive force, rather than through dialogue, in a bid to shift the balance of power further in his favour.

However, no less serious than the threat of political breakdown was the surge of violence on Iraqi streets. In the first two weeks of January alone around 150 people were killed across the country in terrorist attacks. Moreover, many of these attacks were sectarian in nature. On January 14, 63 Shi’a pilgrims were killed in a town near Basra as they marked the end of a religious festival. This occurred just nine days after 78 people died in a string of co-ordinated strikes in Baghdad and Nasiriyah.
Despite seven years of training by NATO, the Iraqi security forces appeared to be struggling to contain the country’s insurgency, with al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia posing a particular threat. Part of the problem that the security forces face is that they lack the air assets once provided by US forces – not just combat aircraft, but also surveillance drones. While the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) does possess some unmanned systems, it remains overall a severely underequipped force. The US did confirm the sale of 18 F-16 fighter aircraft to the IQAF in January, with Baghdad lodging a request for an additional 18 aircraft shortly thereafter. But it will take several years for the new aircraft to become operational. It has often been noted that Maliki could quell the mounting political instability in Iraq by implementing the Arbil Agreement, which was the basis for the establishment of his second administration in late 2010.

The terms of the agreement, whose purpose was to enshrine a range of enthno-sectarian balances in the structures of the Iraqi government, has never been implemented by Maliki, despite repeated demands from Iraqiya as well as Kurdish politicians. Though the Arbil Agreement represents a framework for a peaceful Iraqi state, Maliki’s apparent preference for strongman government make its implementation unlikely, while is also increasing the danger of civil war.