Washington has managed to start a dialogue with Sunni parties on the future of the war on the Islamic State (IS). The Iraqi government had failed for years to open such talks in the context of the continuously deferred national reconciliation project. This raises several issues, chief among them that the Iraqi state is failing to present itself as a neutral intermediary between the political forces and instead promoting itself or allowing the conflicting parties to promote it.

First of all, this is not the first time that the United States has managed to set the stage for dialogue between the various Iraqi parties. In 2006, it established the Sahwa forces following talks and negotiations conducted by US officials with Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders who were fighting the US presence in Iraq and caused the US forces material and human losses during the occupation of the country (2003-11).

At the time, the Iraqi government, headed by Nouri al-Maliki, refused the formation of the Sahwa forces and viewed the idea with suspicion. Back then, Maliki told Newsweek, “They make mistakes by arming tribes sometimes, and this is dangerous because this will create new militias.”

Remarkably, in 2008, Maliki himself defended the Sahwa set up by the US military and acknowledged that it was these very forces that defeated al-Qaeda. However, Maliki reiterated in 2014 the same concerns related to the arming of tribes and the forming of the National Guard forces: that the move would set the stage for new militias.