Iraq’s Al Abadi set for Washington visit

The Iraqi prime minister is expected to ask for billion of dollars in weapons, along with a deferred payment plan.

A US army trainer watches as an Iraqi recruit prepares to fire at a military base on April 12 in Taji, Iraq. John Moore/Getty Images

New York // Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi will use his first visit to the White House to seek an increase in US arms deliveries as well as stepped up coalition air strikes to help Baghdad fight ISIL extremists.

“Number one [on the agenda] is a marked increase in the air campaign and the delivery of arms,” Mr Al Abadi said before leaving Baghdad for Washington on Monday.

While US air strikes backing Iraqi and Shiite militia forces proved essential in retaking Tikrit from ISIL, Mr Al Abadi said: “we want to see more”.

At his meeting with US president Barack Obama on Tuesday, the Iraqi prime minister is expected to ask for billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weapons systems including drones, Apache attack helicopters and missiles, but on a deferred payment plan.

Iraq is facing an economic and budgetary crisis as oil revenues plunge and resources are diverted to the ISIL fight.

The country’s projected budget deficit for 2015 is around US$21 billion (Dh77bn).

Much of the heavy weaponry delivered by the US over the past decade was captured or destroyed by ISIL, which exploited Sunni alienation in Iraq and the chaos of Syria to take over much of northern and western Iraq last year.

Iraqi officials say the drones and helicopters will be key to the upcoming offensives against ISIL in the militant group’s largest Iraqi base, Mosul, as well as elsewhere in Nineveh and Anbar provinces.

The US formed an international coalition in August to begin air strikes against ISIL and deployed around 3,000 US troops to help advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces roll back ISIL, but has premised its assistance on political reforms in Iraq that seek to address, in particular, Sunni disenfranchisement.

The scope and pace of US assistance has frustrated Iraqi officials, but the success in Tikrit and Mr Al Abadi’s ability to address US concerns may allow him to return to Baghdad with arms agreements and tighter coordination on the ISIL campaign.

From Washington’s perspective, Mr Al Abadi was able limit the role of Iranian proxy militias, which allowed the US to carry out air strikes in Tikrit. US air power was essential to Baghdad’s victory there, as the anti-ISIL forces had become bogged down and unable to retake the city.

Mr Al Abadi also appeared to make good on promises to restrain the militias from carrying out revenge atrocities against Sunni civilians in retaken territory.

Nonetheless, reports of lynchings of suspected ISIL fighters, sporadic looting and other abuses will make Mr Al Abadi’s other task in Washington more difficult: convincing a sceptical US congress that in exchange for the military aid, he is willing to empower Iraqi Sunnis and blunt Iranian influence in Iraq.

Mr Al Abadi will have to convince congress, which is required to greenlight foreign arms sales, “that now is the time for the Americans to double down on their friends in Iraq to try to counter Iranian influence, and that [he] is one of these western-looking friends that we should support”, said Douglas Ollivant, a former director for Iraq on the National Security Council and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. “It is a difficult case to make at a time when Iranian influence is on the rise in the country.”

Iraqi officials say that this is a chance for the Obama administration to correct the mistake they made last June, when the White House demanded political reform in exchange for military intervention, paving the way for Iraq to perceive Iran as its most reliable ally and allowing Tehran to expand its influence.

Mr Al Abadi will likely try to use the Iranian military alternative as a point of leverage in his talks with Mr Obama.

"If that's not available, we've already done it with the Iranians and others," a senior Iraqi official told Reuters. "The PM is committed to the US ... What he also wants to make sure is that he has a partner that he can rely on."

The US will hope that Iraq’s desire for greater military aid and cooperation will allow them to force concessions, perhaps on accelerating long-delayed plans to arm Sunni tribal forces to fight ISIL.

There is a danger that “those two conversations” — about greater US help and the demand for Iraqi concessions — “may bypass each other”, Mr Ollivant said.

Mr Al Abadi is travelling to Washington accompanied by his energy, defence and finance ministers. Beyond the immediate ISIL war, the talks will likely also be focused on the longer term, and how Iraq can build a sustainable political and economic balance that can salvage Iraq and unify its three major communities — its Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations.

“The administration is geared up to have a very comprehensive discussion not only with Abadi but with key members of his team to talk about… all of the different pieces of an economic and political strategy,” said Brian Katulis, an expert on US security policy in the Middle East at the Center for American Progress think tank.

“The real question the governments will be struggling with is what will this integrated strategy actually look like,” he added.

The complexity of convincing Baghdad and Iraq’s Kurds to continue to maintain their shaky oil-revenue sharing agreement, while also addressing Sunni Arab fears of being economically sidelined is immense.

But the urgency of both the immediate military challenge and the longer-term political challenges were underscored by the continuing resilience of the ISIL insurgency.

Their focus has shifted to taking the Anbar provincial capital, Ramadi, where they nearly killed the provincial governor with a mortar strike on Monday. In and around Baghdad, car bombs killed at least fifteen civilians in Shiite-dominated areas, and ISIL fighters were able to briefly breach the perimeter of Iraq’s largest refinery at Baiji, before being pushed out by security forces.

Also on Monday, Iraq exhumed the remains of 164 of the around 1,700 Shiite cadets massacred by ISIL in Tikrit last June.