Should Baathists have role in post-IS Iraq?
Former Baathists, some of whom have collaborated with the Islamic State (IS), are now looking to take on a prominent role in the post-IS recovery.
Iraqi security forces arrested Saddam Hussein’s cousin Nizar Hammoud Abdul Ghani, who was one of the Iraqi president’s personal guards, on Oct. 25 for his alleged involvement in the Islamic State's attack on Kirkuk on Oct. 21.
“Three of his brothers are also high-ranking officers in the [IS] organization in Al-Hawija district,” the chief of Kirkuk’s suburban police, Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, told Rudaw. Hawija lies some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Kirkuk.
As the inevitable defeat of IS approaches, analysts and politicians are busy discussing life in Iraq after the group. Sectarian reconciliation, political autonomy and the role of external actors such as Turkey continue to dominate the media discourse.
One group that remains absent from post-liberation narratives is the former Baathists, who have played a complex role in Mosul’s recent history and have had a dysfunctional relationship with post-2003 governments in Baghdad. If the role of former Baathists is forgotten in post-IS Iraq, then many of the key issues that arose when IS entered Mosul in 2014 will likely return in the future.
