What difference does Ramadi make?

Headlines today suggest that Iraqi security forces have retaken government buildings in the center of Ramadi, which fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) in May. Progress has been slow during the six months of the government offensive, which eschewed the use of Shia militias in a Sunni town 55 miles west of Baghdad that once had a population close to 200,000. The US has provided both tactical air attacks and trainers to support the government effort.

ISIS’s improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have made the liberation particularly treacherous, but ISIS did not make a concerted effort to hold on to Ramadi. Instead they tried to make the government’s advance as costly as possible. It still controls big neighborhoods. I’ve not seen any casualty figures, but they were likely significant, on both sides. The physical destruction is massive.

Now comes the hard part: early recovery and eventual reconstruction. While the past can’t be regarded as necessarily indicating future performance, it is worth a look at what has happened in Tikrit, a town of roughly the same size that was retaken from the Islamic State in April. The UN reported in October that

UNDP supported the efforts of the Government of Iraq to stabilize areas liberated from ISIL, particularly in and around Tikrit, through the Funding Facility for Immediate Stabilization. Several infrastructure projects identified by local authorities are under way in the sectors of water, electricity, health and education, targeting 85,000 beneficiaries among the 133,000 people who have returned to Tikrit. It is estimated that the previous population of Tikrit was 200,000. On

24 August, a cash-for-work project that through a UNDP partnership with local non-governmental organizations employs 200 persons daily for public infrastructure rehabilitation was begun.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is taking the lead on what it is calling “crisis response and resilience” in areas recovered from ISIL. Contributions are dribbling in: Denmark $3.3 million, Italy $2.72 million, Germany $33 million. These are small amounts, at least an order of magnitude if not two less than what will be required. Europeans clearly feel the Iraqi government should ante up the lion’s share. But with oil under $40 per barrel and extraordinary expenses associated with the fight against ISIS, Baghdad’s capabilities are limited.

It is unclear what the Americans are doing: the AID Iraq webpage is hopelessly out of date, but reports $172 in funding in 2014, more than half for democracy and governance. No doubt American humanitarian assistance has been generous, as it always is. But Americans certainly feel they are doing enough for the war effort and will hesitate to make any commitments to reconstruction, given the tremendous waste of resources that accompanied the occupation we indulged in during the first decade of this millennium.

The Gulf petrostates? Iraq’s relations with the Sunni Arab monarchies are simply bad. Baghdad has cozied up to Iran, especially during Prime Minister Maliki’s increasingly sectarian rule. Nor are the Gulf states feeling generous with oil prices less than one half of what they were last year.

I’d be the first to admit that too much money flowing into post-war reconstruction can be a bad thing. It encourages waste and theft. But I’m getting the feeling that resources may fall disastrously short as territory is retaken from the Islamic State. This will likely be true in Syria as well as Iraq, when and if the time comes.

The Islamic State is an insurgency: a brutal, totalitarian Sunni insurgency against sectarian governance. To win the war against it, you’ve got to provide stability, some measure of prosperity, and governance that shows respect for people who have been grossly mistreated, both under the Ba’athist dictatorship in Syria and under the illiberal democracy in Iraq. The Islamic State, or something worse, will be back wherever there is a vacuum. Without a serious reconstruction effort, the retaking of Ramadi (and Tikrit) may make no real difference.

Daniel Serwer

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Daniel Serwer

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