As ISIS Is Driven From Iraq, Sunnis Remain Alienated<br />Hamid al-Mutlaq, who represents Karmah in Parliament, said the government was more focused on working with Iran<br />and Iranian-armed Shiite militias than helping Sunnis rebuild.<br />Under Mr. Maliki, who was prime minister from 2006 to 2014, many Sunnis who had reclaimed<br />their jobs were purged from the military and government, some for the second time.<br />David L. Phillips, a former State Department adviser who has worked on Iraq for 30<br />years, said Sunnis had failed to organize as effectively as Shiites and Kurds.<br />Iranian-trained Shiite militias are part of Iraq’s armed forces<br />and have battled Islamic State militants since they seized nearly a third of Iraq in 2014.<br />Sheikh Ahmed said that We won’t tolerate that kind of foreign interference on top of everything else,<br />But even Sunnis opposed to the Kurdish vote were alarmed when Iraqi forces conducted<br />military maneuvers with Iranian troops inside Iran along the Iraq border.<br />With Iraq’s government now controlled by Shiites, and the Kurds governing their<br />own autonomous area in the north, the Sunnis are in a political no-man’s land.<br />" Ms. Fantappie said. that The Abadi government has never needed the Sunnis more than now,
