Two weeks ago, Iraqi forces took Kirkuk—one of the major cities of the Kurdish Regional Government—aided by a variety of local militias. Jonathan Spyer draws a disturbing historical parallel:
The capture of Kirkuk recalls other swift and decisive assertions of control that the Middle East has witnessed in recent years. Perhaps the closest parallel might be the Hizballah takeover of west Beirut in May-June 2008. Then, too, a pro-Western element (the March 14 movement) sought to assert its sovereignty and independent decision-making capabilities. It had many friends in the West who overestimated its strength and capacity to resist pressure. And in the Lebanese case as well, a sudden, forceful move by an Iranian client swiftly (and, it seems, permanently) reset the balance of power, demonstrating to the pro-Western element that it was subordinate and that further resistance would be fruitless.
There is, of course, a further reason to note the similarity between Kirkuk in October 2017 and Beirut in 2008. Namely that in both cases, the faction that drove its point home through the judicious use of political maneuvering and the sudden application of force was a client of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). In Lebanon, the client was Hizballah, the prototype of the IRGC-sponsored political-military organizations that Iran is now using to exert its influence across a huge swath of the Middle East. In Iraq, the equivalent force is the PMU (Popular Mobilization Units) or Hashd al-Shaabi. These fighters spearheaded the entry into Kirkuk, working in close coordination with the Iraqi army’s 9th Armored Division, the Emergency Response Unit of the federal police, and the U.S.-trained counterterrorism service.
The Shiite militias of the PMU were raised in June 2014, following a fatwa from the renowned Iraqi Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. At that time, Islamic State was heading for Baghdad, hence the need for the rapid mobilization of auxiliary fighters. The PMU’s forces now consist of about 120,000 fighters in total. And while dozens of militias are associated with it, a handful of larger formations form its central pillars. The three most important groups are all pro-Iranian and directly connected to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). . . . The leaders of all three are closely linked to the [IRGC’s] General Qassem Suleimani. They are, as one diplomat put it, “Iran’s proconsuls” in Iraq.
Read more on Middle East Forum: http://www.meforum.org/6971/the-fall-of-kirkuk-made-in-iran