Welcome to another session of the Friday seminar series at the Middle East Centre at St Anthony's.
It is my great pleasure to introduce our guest tonight.
Dr. In our hand off. We just met today, but that's a mistake I want to make up for as soon as possible,
because we basically work on the same thing a few hundred kilometres apart.
Militia is an informal grassroots armed activity and in formations within formations that have at least foot, if not more, in the local state.
So Dr. Rudolf is a senior research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and
also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies at King's College,
London. She is also working with Accept, which stands for Cross Border Conflict, Evidence, Policy and Trends.
And there she analyses the implications of identity politics and the mobilisation of violent memories in conflict affected Borderlands.
She is also a partner at the Candide Foundation, which is an independent Berlin based think tank working on political,
social and cultural challenges facing Muslim communities in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and beyond.
So very limited impact. As you can see, she has done really amazing field work, I believe,
mostly in Iraq and as like a cluster of data that she's doing wonderful work based on.
So without further ado, please join me in welcoming her.
Thank you so much.
And it's a real pleasure to be able to share my research findings in such a distinguished circle from Maryam and I already started brainstorming
about potential synergies and what we can learn from each other by having studied this array of auxiliary or regime aligned actors.
Unfortunately, in the field of security studies, of defence studies of political science,
you always have this bias or this emphasis on studying the non-state actor or the irregular actor,
and looks like there has been less emphasis put on those who work as an additional pillar of the state's defence infrastructure.
And that's why I found it very fascinating to conduct this research on the PMI, which I started conducting in 2017.
The PMI for those who are less familiar with the topic are a paramilitary umbrella,
the Popular Mobilisation Forces, or the popular mobilisation units known in Arabic as a cash to shabby.
And what I found most interesting about this research is to study how they created a popular brand.
So everything like that goes beyond this.
A bit simplistic, but quite popular analytical prism of just looking at them as an Iranian Trojan horse or an Iranian proxy.
So that's why also my field was very much focussed on understanding their externally productive self-perception.
What did they think about their role within the state,
but also what do they think about engaging in the transnational religious sphere and also how they can translate religious capital obtained in this
transnational religious field into institutional power and also into governmental leverage within the realms of the context of the Iraqi state.
So this would be a bit the structure of today's presentation, as we are focusing today,
primarily on their ascent to power, on their role within the political fields.
The focus will be very much on their participation or contestation on the Iraqi elections and everything like that followed after that period,
including like one of the most recent developments where they were officially awarded the privilege of having their own state owned company.
So we will get into the nitty gritty when we discuss the political fields.
But for all the students presence here, I would also like to share a bit about my own model or like my decision how to approach this topic.
And this includes also looking into the dynamics of the religious and of the civic or the social field.
So basically to understand how they tried to establish themselves as a legitimate voice,
as a legitimate actor within the Iraqi state, which is not a homogeneous entity and cannot be analysed as such.
I decided to borrow from the board's toolkit of Fields theory and to look at their
behaviour and lift practices within also the religious and the civic fields,
and to analyse the translation of different forms of capital.
And I would be happy also to discuss the limitations of the research because this is very important.
Also when we advertise our work to know that we should be able to speak about our own data and water,
which are also the boundaries of the empirical data that we have.
And this research is very much drawing on elite interviews with commanders, with the upper ranks of the Iraqi security establishment.
So it's an analysis what they regard as legitimate and not an impact measurement of how legitimate they are,
let's say, in the eyes of community, somewhere in the minimal province or in Basra.
So like, this would be a completely different topic or perhaps like one of you can undertake drawing on these findings.
And then I am very looking forward to the discussion that we can have about the implications also like for the nature of Iraqi statehood.
So the guiding questions of my research have always been like how they have sought to establish themselves as a legitimate actor,
like how they have generated legitimacy in these different fields,
but also how they have pursued symbolic power,
how influential they were to shape certain norms and values through their practices for ceremonies, through their open communication.
Maryam and I were also previously discussing that they have not just focussed.
On communicating their role as a member of the security sector,
but have also recently created their own think tank and are publishing their own peer review magazine with affiliated or a hazard friendly
researchers where issues are being discussed in a way that emphasise or highlight their added value to the Iraqi security sector.
And another very important research question for me was how they capitalised,
like how they benefited from the legality that was bestowed onto them by the Iraqi state,
by consecutive Iraqi governments, because already in 2006 they were recognised as the Iraqi security forces,
but still independent from the Ministry of Interior and from the Ministry of Defence,
which of course offers them a lot of leeway and provides them with undeniable
plausible deniability and also allows them to engage in a lot of illicit,
illicit activities, illicit economic enterprises, without necessarily being held accountable for those.
This is my list of the logical toolkits.
A lot of the data comes from first hand testimonies by commanders from the Iraqi resistance,
the so-called Iran aligned brigades, but also brigades associated with the holy shrines,
or about those perceived as loyal to Sistani Sadrist brigades,
but also statements by clerics, by members of the Iraqi security forces, Iraqi politicians.
So in all of these conversations,
focus group interviews like the topic was like how the hotspots are like this popular phenomenon was perceived from different angles.
Even those and this is an important anecdote from the field, even those who are very critical of the controversial footprint of some brigades,
or especially like their involvement in human rights violations, were very careful of how they frame this criticism.
So like they would prefer not to talk about like the hassle itself and to tarnish the brand name,
specifically the name of the brigades or like the name of the brigades leader when they were expressing more critical voices.
Um, and I would like to provide a bit of context how the Hashid actually came into being, how the hashtag was formed.
Of course, the official story starts with the fall of Mosul in 2014.
But even though that's the more popular view that they came as or emerged as a reaction
to the US invasion and were kind of like just the product of a grassroots mobilisation,
the veterans, the vanguards and the architects of this phenomenon were by no means new comers to the Iraqi social political scene.
I have prepared a couple of slides illustrating some of the most influential profiles those who
actually like shaved the dominant narrative before the Hajj in chaos when the hushed stands for.
Some of them have been around already, like during the Iran-Iraq war.
Some of them were very prominent resistance figures and have fought against British and American coalition forces,
and some of them are also very active in the war in Syria.
So without very much speaking about this experiences because like they preferred to be seen as members of the as like the leaders of the Hashid,
they would sometimes share appeasers like from the historical learnings and frame them in hindsight, it's something that is there to contribute,
to equip them to be better servants, like for Iraq,
like for the Iraqi people and for the Iraqis to make what was a huge and remains a huge source of
legitimacy and a very important currency for the hashes remains the fatwa by France Ayatollah al-Sistani.
Misleadingly, the fatwa did not endorse the formation of a paramilitary body.
It was first addressed like an old battle,
a better equipped or better able Iraqis to enlist within the Iraqi security forces
and to try to support the formal security forces in their fight against ISIS.
But because of the collapse of the Iraqi security infrastructure, we witnessed this phenomenon where different centres were formed,
like different recruitment centres, like a lot of them administered and led by the.
Rules of the resistance, like where they started enlisting volunteers, offering military training,
but also redistributing different different weapons and military equipment that was distributed or offered to them by by Iran,
which still being regarded as crucial to the positive outcome of the war against ISIS.
So in interviews with Iraqi clerics, you still feel this hesitation of not talking about the hashes as an institution,
but they prefer to address the fact that this volunteers as highly volunteers because they're also like very,
very aware of what kind of legitimacy they can bestow to some more controversial actors they
which want to exploit the religious legitimacy for their own personal and political interest.
What would follow, what contributed to their political legitimacy was the 2016 law where they were
recognised as members of the Iraqi security forces but still was an independent element.
And one of the most controversial issues that remains when discussing the character
of the Hajj is that the boundaries of this independence were never discussed.
Like it was never in favour of where this independence begins, where it ends.
To which extent they are allowed to engage within the political sphere,
in which form, if they provide services like who is their like to regular this,
who is there also to supervise the flow of certain financial donations and how they're being redistributed and how they're being used.
So a lot of the problems that we witnessed today stemmed from the legal ambiguities that are enshrined like in the 2006 law.
And there have been different legislative attempts to delineate the mandate of the Hashid.
Some of them came during the time of former Prime Minister Abadi,
who came up with a decree basically granting them the same rights and privileges as all members,
formal members of the Iraqi security forces, something that was welcomed with a lot of enthusiasm by by the commanders.
But the moment you got more controversial, like the moment the debate starts,
it's like leading to a discussion about the potential integration of the Hajj within the
Ministry of Defence from minister of Interior that was met with a lot of resistance.
Of course, the argument there was why should we integrate under the structures of the Ministry
of Defence and become as corrupt or as demotivated or disengaged as the Iraqi army,
and I'm quoting here, because if we have then another black swan event as the ISIS invasion, who would be there to protect the country?
So in a way they perceive life, their role outside of the official chain of command as an obligation to the state.
You have to be outside of the realms of the state or of the state security institutions to
be able to defend them in case of an unforeseeable terrorist threat for their own hands,
followed under former Prime minister Adel Abdul Latif, which, as I mentioned earlier,
are in stark contrast with what was approved by the current government of Sudan.
The decree by Abdullah was very clear that all political and economic officers somehow, indirectly or directly affiliated with the PMF,
should be closed, that there should be a very clear mechanism of how military rank should be distributed.
And this, again, brings a lot of unclear or controversial questions about policies, military promotion.
How do you decide who gets as far as military reign if he hasn't gone through the official education system of the military college in Baghdad?
Like, how do you kind of like try to translate the lived combat experience of someone who has fought in guerrilla war into an official military rank?
A lot of a lot of the focus of I did Abu Mattis administration was on the
professionalisation of the Hashid and but then the former the late chief of staff,
Abu Mahdi Al-muhandis, was very much involved. He was also the one that I had the opportunity to interview and where I would
argue that he had a very clear idea or a very clear vision of where this.
Heather. But this vision, as we are witnessing today, is very difficult to implement under the current leadership structure.
I define the PMU as a state sanctioned paramilitary umbrella organisation.
It consists currently of some 40 or 45, predominantly, but not exclusively Shia formations and comprises around 150,000 or 160,000 active volunteers.
Nevertheless, as we were also discussing earlier, the official names of those volunteers have never been published for security reasons.
And it also became a controversial issue when the former Iraqi elections were being discussed
and whether hotshot personnel was to be allowed to go and vote in the special military vote.
They declined to provide the names or to provide information about who is actually on the payroll.
So as we can see, it's very difficult to determine who is actually involved.
And this makes it easier for them to keep one foot within the state framework and one foot outside of the state.
I'd like to interchangeably argue with which identity they're conducting, which practice, and the structure is a very flexible one.
I would rather speak of a network structure than we have.
The one formal body is the Commission on the Popular Mobilisation Forces, but informally we have different currents, different ideological currents.
The most popular view on classifying or clustering the hashes is viewing.
And as a conglomerate of these three different ideological teams or camps, those aligned with Iran, also known as the black Hashid,
those affiliated towards the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Salam Brigades and the so-called shrine brigades,
which I mentioned earlier, that are affiliated with the holy shrines and perceive themselves as loyal to Sistani.
In addition to that, we have a tribal Hashid, also known as a Sunni faction.
But to speak frankly with very different limits of access to resources,
to military equipments and also like different rights when it comes to getting or profiting from certain privileges.
And then the last grounds are so-called mobilised minorities.
The PMF loves to advertise their inclusivity and especially the participation of Yazidi.
A fairly Kurds of even Christian brigades within the has to shy away because they want to create like this popular brand of an
inclusive National Guard of a grassroots mobilisation that's open for everyone and that is also there to benefit everyone.
We see here the current structure or the structure that was approved under Adel Abdul.
It was an attempt to make the appearances are like the cosmetics of the PMF, closer to those of the Ministry of the Ministry of Defence.
What's what's important here was also like the renaming of the position of Abu Mahdi.
Al-muhandis used to be referred to the vice chairman of the PMF.
When he got the more military title. Like him, he got known as the Chief of Staff.
As the chief of staff. He got the privilege of right lamenting and dominating the five most important direct roles,
including those on religious indoctrination and also religious education.
What is the what is kind of like the religious doctrine of the Hashid and how this should be communicated,
like to outsiders and to different segments of Iraqi society?
Here. I would love to scheme through some of the most prominent members of the drama line because like they are constantly being covered by the media.
Just to illustrate the complexity of this actor and also to highlight the difficulty to analyse it as a homogenous
structure or as one that's being able to kind of unify of all forces with a unified voice and a unified agenda.
So members of the around the line camp are the Badr Brigades, a part of Hezbollah,
a parallel hub we can see here in the picture Ihsan Husaini, their leader.
And later in the discussion, we can catch more about his own profile,
because one of the problems of the current scholarly debate on the PMF is really resorting to these camps, this kind of monolithic currents.
And there are a lot of nuances even within the so-called Iran.
The lines are like that. They're being underestimated by spoilers.
For example, even though a cyber hub is still being regarded as very closely aligned with Iran or like the Iran led Transnational Resistance Alliance,
they come historically from a very different direction because Assad has largely had studied himself under the father of Moqtada Sadr.
And if one goes to their official website and reads about their political project,
you would witness a lot of almost Marxist elements of Islamic justice of of the role of the redistribution of resources,
the role of the state, and also like the rights and privileges of of the disenfranchised population.
So I just wanted to highlight this feature maybe for potential discussion later on.
A similar profile is also he used to fight alongside the judicial mafia and was later on supported by the Iranians in a kind
of divide and rule strategy to encourage him to emancipate himself from the Sadrist moment and create his own franchise.
It's Khattab is al Qaeda is another splinter group from Qatar of Hezbollah.
I always find it fascinating to look at their sons and lovers.
And ah, and another very important element of the analysis is to see when they use this specific logo of of their own
militia and when they would prefer to go and advertise their efforts or their services or their endeavours.
Would the official hashtag flower, depending if they want to be perceived now as a state actor or as a member of the resistance who does not have
to abide by the principles of the state or by whatever their actors have been issued by the commander in chief.
Here we see like the Sadrist Brigades, and they have a very hybrid role within the whole PMF conglomerate because they retain,
like their rights to have fighters within the PMA.
Also, like for those fighters to be paid through the PMF Commission.
But also Sadr, like for his own political purposes,
has on many occasions raised the scenario of demobilising the PMF and reintegrating
them or merging them within the structures of the Ministry of Defence,
Ministry of Interior. And we can see here also they are on use of the enclave of Sadr City,
the use of symbolism and how those posters, those images also contribute to their own dominant narrative.
Why are they allowed the most entitled one to shape the nature of the Iraqi state of Iraqi statehood and also like to participate in elections?
And this is the third current that I mentioned previously in the hashtag.
As the mother of the hashtag March, the hashtag connects us with the holy shrines.
They are themselves being regarded as the most patriotic, the less involved in political or economic affairs.
And they were the first one who tried to integrate officially forces within the Ministry of Defence,
within the Iraqi army after the assassination of Abu Muhandis and the change in the leadership structure,
they started voicing their criticism about the way the Commission is being administered and is being managed,
and they have tried to pursue a more independent path and to, uh, to be directly seen as responding to the Commander in Chief and.
It's to be guided by whatever the current chief of staff of the commission regards as legitimate or most urgent.
We hear answer like my my mother or like the way I have tried to look at the hashes and the first few of them.
Maybe one of the most important fields of contestation is the political field.
And here they have tried to embrace two practices or to claim ownership of two guiding roles.
One is that the protector of the state parties or the entrepreneur, the one who gets to determine the rules of the game,
the one who gets engaged by by getting engaged and by creating precedent also gets to change the decision making procedures and the logic of the game.
One of the examples is that according to the official electoral law in Iraq,
all members of the security forces are prohibited from participating in elections or from getting directly engaged in politics.
So the way they try to circumvent this or to reframe this was to change their military attire with formal suits and to say,
I am hereby officially disengaged from the PMF.
And I now have my legitimate right as a citizen of Iraq to go and participate in the elections,
because I regard that my political project has something to contribute or an added value.
And whenever one would try to race in interviews or in meetings, how they try to reconcile this military identity with the political identity.
This is one of the most popular arguments saying like, No,
we have the hardship of the military institution and I have my own right as a citizen to go and get engaged in politics,
to form my own political party and even like to get engage in economic enterprise or.
How did comedy was one of those most famous individuals who had this narrative.
When I ask him how he legitimises or justifies the fun of himself, his participation in politics,
and what he thinks of the threats of harshly fighting or militia fighting the political field in Iraq,
he said Like that he has always been regarding himself as a politician, as one who has been working within the halls of parliament,
that when the ISIS threat came, he had this patriotic obligation to leave his office and go on the battlefield.
So by participating in the elections,
he was merely returning from politics where he had taken a sabbatical to defend his own country on the battlefield in 2008.
In comparison to the current election, this strategy works very well.
I would say that there's political communication and social political outreach was superb.
And they even with the name FATA, which means conquest,
they succeeded in translating the capital that they had generated within the security field into political capital,
and also to get a lot of their loyal cadres or proteges dominating important ministerial portfolios.
And the discussions within the Iraqi parliament on the slides here, as you can see, 15 of the seats were allocated so outside Hello Hub,
which makes things also very difficult for Iraq's international partners, especially as a side is also under US sanctions.
So even today you have a lot of discussions if Western politicians, if Western diplomats are to meet with those forces.
And that was a controversial thread actually yesterday when I was preparing for the talk,
the Australian ambassador had personally visited the office of Kasimpasa.
And what followed was a very strong backlash of whether she is granting or bestowing legitimacy onto his
persona by speaking to him and like by publicly engaging in discussion with also about her members.
But the counter argument from the Australian side was, listen,
those people are currently dominating the Iraqi political scene and we have no choice but to engage in a discussion with them.
So it's our responsibility as Iraq partners to know like what are their priorities, how they view of things,
to be able also to contain their influence, or at least like to explore some sort of a middle ground in that?
After the election in 2018, we witnessed a very, very difficult period to try to determine like who is the largest parliamentary bloc.
And this has a lot to do with ambiguities within the Iraqi constitution.
How do you actually determine who has who has the privilege to claim to be the largest parliamentary block and also like to name the prime minister?
And this was resolved in 2008, like when the figure of Adel Abdul Mahdi, who became this compromise candidate.
And this contributed to further marking the waters of the PM phenomenon because he had no powerful political party behind him.
And it led to a lot of different actors, either directly or indirectly affiliated with the PMF,
to exert influence onto the office of the Prime Minister and also like to push for more beneficial policies to increase their sway onto the state,
also like to enable them to get more involved into the business of post-conflict reconstruction and to continue this constant game
of playing between the state and its role and kind of like picking their different hats for the different battles that they choose.
We come here to the religious field, and this was this was my response to the current debate on proxy warfare.
In most of the studies that we read about this forces the Russians engagement with Iran,
has its relations with Quds forces or even like their presence on the battlefield in Syria,
has been very much viewed through the prism of having a disciplined proxy actor that.
Responding to or even implementing direct the Iranian agendas.
And my approach was to try to study their own rationale of doing this.
And I divided I divided the religious field into two different practices.
The first was the holy warrior or the Hashid over this.
This is a very prominent role where they claim legitimacy within the religious field by arguing that everything that they do,
every battle that they lead, is serving some kind of a sacred agenda by by serving, but by also responding to the fatwa of Sistani.
And even their presence in Syria was legitimised through the of this process and not necessarily through the resistance.
When you look at empirical data, the original empirical data, for example,
posters of Pashtun martyrs who have been killed in Syria, you will always see this argument or narrative.
He has been killed defending the shrine of ZAYNAB, So he has been killed,
not defending the Assad regime because he's a father of the Islamic Republic.
But he has been killed in battle because he is defending those our suppressed and shared brethren who are in danger.
And then the resistance for us or their self promotion as a resistance force as well.
Calling for me here, it was interesting to analyse why did they regard this practice or this identity as a resistance force,
as a source of legitimacy in the religious field? And here we also have different interpretation depending on who gets to frame,
who gets to shape the narrative of what it means to practice the resistance within the Iraqi field.
How legitimate is to resist on Iraqi soil?
How legitimate is to conduct airstrikes on the US Embassy or how legitimate is also to express support for the cause of the Houthi rebels in Yemen?
And you see within this practice that their focus has been more local in mind us more domestic than what
we tend of thinking when we when we focus predominantly on the Iran Transnational Resistance Alliance.
So they would they would try to frame their engagement in such operations as
something serving the Iraqi state or being in the best interest of the Iraqi state,
even when Abu Musab Rouhani is the leader.
And Muhandis was interrogated in some interviews about his connections or his friendship with the late cousin Soleimani.
He would always like point out that that was a decision that serves the Iraq the interests of the Iraqi state.
But like through his own interpretation of the interests of the Iraqi state.
And I think that's a crucial point to understand, like how they think of themselves and also like how they frame their as value.
We see also like how ceremonies, different religious spaces like have been used to claim legitimacy to generate legitimacy.
These pictures are from from the holy shrine in Karbala.
And here I found this particularly interesting.
It takes place every year.
It's the Moqtada al-Sadr, the martyr, them Spring Festival.
And here you can see kids get to sit together and to learn about the sacrifices,
about the victimhood of the fallen martyrs and like it not to be directly indoctrinated like
then at least like to perceive of themselves as a benevolent servant of the Iraqi people,
of the Iraqi State of God, and of of shared pride from all across the world, and of course,
through the US assassination of Martin Muhandis and Cousin Soleimani, we witness a bit an identity,
a period of identity crisis within the PMF, because like the main architect,
the main visionary was gong, and this opened the door to a lot of internal power struggles,
to a lot of competition, which is the part that, like the PMU should be pursuing.
And interestingly, no Abu father played very much tries to implement the same vision,
and he's currently like struggling to reconcile the interests and the extracurricular activities of members of the
resistance with his own obligation or his task to protect the brand of the PMF at something like logistically.
State sanctions that can always offer legal cover, but also moral cover.
Life for all those members of the resistance. Pretend like whenever things get political,
to claim legitimacy by advertising themselves as a member of the ownership and not member of the resistance.
So one example that Miriam and I were discussing earlier, when an arrest happens under the administration of Mustafa Al-kadhimi,
there was enough evidence that members of Hezbollah had indeed participated in an attack on the US embassy,
and 12 individuals from Khattab Hezbollah were arrested.
There was, of course, no public information whether those were on the official PMI payroll.
But the overall argument by hushed up officials was that those are not active members of the PMF, but that they are members of the Iraqi resistance,
that they are no more ASA or state servants, and that they should not abide by the same principles as members of the Iraqi security forces.
Contrary, when an attack on weapon depots affiliated with Hezbollah along the Syrian border
would happen and might say US strikes would attack those sensitive military locations,
then you will again witness public demonstrations in the Green Zone in Baghdad by saying,
Now we have to demand the expelling of U.S. forces because they have attacked Iraqi national
security forces and they have they have disrespected the Iraqi national sovereignty.
So we constantly see the use of this to hide.
And there has been very little resistance or like very limited political will to limit this game.
A lot of it has to do with the role or the domination of the society or the so-called resistance factions like this, veterans of the resistance,
who are still the most powerful currents within the PMF and their role is still being justified by the fact that after the collapse of the Iraqi army,
after the collapse of the Iraqi security forces, those factions or battle hardened who had gathered enough experience by fighting coalition forces,
by fighting in Syria were the ones to and I'm here quoting from an interview to donate cadres to the PMF,
to make the PMF stronger, and also to improve the combat morale of these young volunteers who have no experience on the battlefield.
And last but not least, we come to the civic fields.
And I think this is probably like next to the name of the PMF is the popular mobilisation,
one of the most important pillars of their legitimacy claims here.
They have tried to claim for themselves two different roles one of the inclusive National Guard,
the guard that is there to employ each and every segment of the Iraqi society.
So here we see all of this promotion or advertising of faily Kurds fighting with the Hashid, of Yazidis fighting with the Hashid.
They're very diligent in their political communication. On Twitter, for example,
you would see a lot of interviews conducted with tribal sheiks who then praise the PMF and say like that even the
Shia brigades of the PMF are more reliable than their Sunni politicians were in Baghdad and have fled the country.
So you have a lot of strategic communications really to deliver a convincing message on that front.
And the last one is the role of a service provider.
So not only the mobilisation made by the people, but also the mobilisation serving the people here.
On the slides, you can see a picture where they are supplying communities with water,
but this is just like one part of the services that they have been offering.
Specifically during the COVID pandemic.
I was paying attention to the way they were framing their services and the way they were trying to present themselves as indispensable for the state.
So just to give you an example,
they had posted that they would provide all of the field hospitals of the Hashid at the disposal of the Iraqi Health Ministry,
which is completely overwhelmed. So through this kind of messaging, you are not just presenting yourself as serving the state,
but you are also implying that the state is not capable to do it without you.
And this is also a very logical step because if we go back to the beginning of the presentation about like the context of emergence, the PMF had.
Like in a context of crisis and with at least the territorial defeat of the Islamic State.
Voices arguing for the dissolution of the PMF are getting louder, so they need different layers to add to this.
Security or military legitimacy.
Like they need different forces on their part and in some cases even different enemies of the states that they are fighting against.
So during the history process, you had a lot of the hush of channels communicating in a very antagonising manner about the presence of Daniel Pearl
or framing Iraqi protesters as jokers who have been funded by your mind as Western forces to destabilise the country.
But Hassan was there to protect the state and to protect the established order.
And as you can see, like they are currently very anxious not to not to witness theirs through its legitimacy,
diminishing especially like with not that many terrorist threats being in the consciousness of Iraqi people.
Another curious fact was that they have now started advertising their efforts in combating organised crime.
So even though on the one hand you have so many controversial reports of certain PMF affiliated
brigades engaged directly or indirectly in smuggling networks on their own official channel,
like they would post a picture of the seizure of Captagon pills and how like their commute contributing to the
combating of drug trafficking and like basically how indispensable they are to have a stable and secure it.
You want to say there are a lot of open questions that we can touch up.
I have just witnessed a couple of them. One remains the question of reintegration scenarios.
What would be their institutional path?
During interviews, I have offered them different options, like to pick from as what they would like to identify themselves.
Of course, I have asked the question about the IRGC or about Hezbollah.
Interestingly, in a in an interview with one member of the Resistance, he identified the hashtag as having similarities to the Italian Carabinieri.
And he said, like, we want to be like the Carabinieri, like we are there for the people because we have such an intimate connection to the people.
We are like the psychologists of the cross, so we can react like much better than conventional members of the police department.
Also, another aspect of like this recent Russian scenario we can talk here about Egypt, like Egypt was also given as an example.
Why shouldn't the military be engaged like in the production of certain utilities?
Like why, for example, hashish should not start like and produce refrigerators.
Now they have their own state owned company. So we are going to see in which direction that trading company has.
But as you can see, like the path of reintegration necessarily like would make things more difficult for them.
And what they want to preserve is this flexibility.
And of course, like to benefit from the different parts and like to explore or different identities depending on the target audience and of course,
depending on the political context and on who is dominating the halls of parliament.
Another scenario that is also being discussed recently, especially in the course of contemporary Iraqi discussions of amending the Iraqi constitution.
One of the scenario was also whether the Hashid could play a role as a National Guard,
but also the border guards as being like an ancillary force working together with Peshmerga forces,
which is the forces of protecting the borders, not just between the provinces, but also in in the north of Iraq.
Of course, this is seen as a very controversial and intimidating scenario, especially by different minority groups in Manilla and by Iraqi Kurds.
Another open question remains the status of the Iraqi security sector reform.
Unfortunately, in all of my interviews with practitioners or even foreign advisors in the security sector reform, there isn't enough clarity.
And there is also no consensus on the status of the PMF.
So, for example, if you were to provide military assistance to Iraq or military equipment, then military equipments on paper would be at the disposal.
Of all members of the Iraqi forces. So this would make it very difficult for you to go and process, for example,
why certain Hezbollah fighters would be posing with American tanks on Twitter.
Another another controversial aspect is, of course, the maximum pressure approach.
And there are arguments that Iraq shouldn't be involved in this conflict,
that Iraq should be spared the fate of becoming or remaining a battle ground for these two forces.
I like the last one, as we see is this separation of the financial schemes of individual commanders and also life of the informal affiliates.
And how can you actually engage in formal supervision or financial oversight when there are so many ambiguities on the ground,
when there are so many ways to claim plausible deniability by, for example,
having a sway within a certain commentary about reconstruction,
you can manipulate the vote and you can make sure that a friend of yours can be awarded the very lucrative reconstruction contract,
and that he, on the other hand, can use this to create more patronage networks for would be, let's say,
more open to your to your pitch or lie to your rhetoric, to your narrative and would maybe like roll more friendly,
like to the idea of having the hashes is a permanent phenomenon and as eternal people's militia or a paramilitary like there for the people,
by the people, for God, for the state, and for everyone who is in danger and needs.
Here are three questions that I would also like to throw back to the audience.
One is, in your perception or in your reading of popular media,
how do you think have the assassinations of Abu Mazen Muhandis and his cousin Soleimani affected?
Maybe not just the fashion,
but also like the whole nature of sponsored Iran sponsored or auxiliary forces in the region to which extends after hearing this presentation,
do you think they can still somehow be referred to as a proxy actor?
And the last one,
what's what's your impression of how do you think this involvement in politics and this political Assad has impacted the nature of the Iraqi state,
but also the debate about Iraqi statehood in the eyes of Iraqi citizens, but also in the eyes of us as scholars, as part of Iraq.
And thank you very much. Thank you so much.
You know, I feel like a kid at a candy store.
I don't know where to start and what to pick. I'll try to start with issues that I think may be more direct and smaller and then
go to much broader theoretical questions that a presentation brought to my mind.
So one which I think relates to your last two questions about whether the hijab can still be considered a proxy actor and how
it affects the future of the state is the question of how clearly do you see traces of not just Iran's political influence,
but a conscious attempt to copy what happened in Iran, like sort of a voluntary organisation?
All eyes are more present, if you will, like this and attempts to create the institution in the image of the Iranian counterpart,
which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij, the organisation forces behind it.
Did you see that your evidence is on that? And it relates to your last question about how it affects the nature of the state.
While the Iranian state looks very different with the Supreme Leader on top and
pseudo democratically elected presidents like running a different part of the state.
There is no such thing in the Iraqi state. So if they are attempting to replicate that institutional arrangement, how are they doing it?
Who are they reporting to? Basically within the state when they want to be state actors?
And who are they defying when they prefer to put on a different hat and be independent?
So that was the smallest place. The other one, which is quite related, I think, is that I would like to know what you think about this,
that it's not just about putting on different hats and sort of segregating the institution, saying, yeah, this part is the more official part.
This this section is like the kind of more fluid resistance movement part of it or the same unit introducing themselves at one time.
I like independent resistance movement at another time as an arm of the state.
So it's not just about that perhaps, but also about a new type of, again,
organisational and institutional setup that enables such an arrangement, such flexibility to move to either part.
So for like conventional armies, militaries, militias, events, national guards of some sort,
something that comes with direct and transparent state control is professionalisation, as you were mentioning, the Iraqi state.
Was it part of a dynasty that wanted to pursue?
If that happens, if the force becomes like a sort of progressive, advanced type of a an armed entity,
then it becomes hard to have independence state, to be flexible, to put on a different hat and say, oh, no, we're just a resistance movement.
So you have to like have a cap for the institutional complexity for for that arrangement to work.
So did you have any come across, any evidence showing a sort of a liminal institutional structure between a grassroots,
but completely but the short term entity and a and advanced state sponsored professional military?
I'll stop here. I'll use my privileges as a moderator to come in again.
So, yeah, I mean, thank you very much for these questions.
And I think the most critical aspect is whether the PMU is currently being integrated within the state or whether this,
like, very fragile concept of a state is being integrated within the PMU cosmology.
And it very much depends on who constitutes the state or who is currently seen as dominating Iraqi statehood.
What might appear in our eyes as a cognitive dissonance is a very logical argument in their eyes.
I have heard on multiple occasions commanders from the resistance with presence in the PMF, but also with brigades outside the structure of the PMF,
arguing that they have to kind of sustain these forces like so no matter how the PMF develops,
like, as you said, whether it becomes like this completely professional, state sponsored.
Whether it becomes an Iraqi IRGC or an Iraqi Hezbollah or an Iraqi Carabinieri that they need,
like this additional artillery forces to be able to protect their idea of the state, even if that means directly attacking the government.
So this, like in our eyes, like coming from a more like Westphalian mentality, like you would naturally confront the commander and ask like,
what's your legitimacy, like to attack or to go against the commandments of the Iraqi prime minister or the Iraqi government?
If they are just the manifestation of the state, but they don't see it like that.
And this has revealed for me the fragility of of of statehood, of who gets to claim like that.
He represents the state that he speaks for, the state that he stands for, for the state.
And at the end, it's very much a transformation process like different phenomenon would be called in a different way or would get by different labels,
depending on on which side of the barricades you are.
So, for example, if you are engaging in armed operations and you are in sync with the state or like I wouldn't speak of the say,
I would speak of ruling elites, like if your agendas or like your enemies are similar or overlapping with those of these ruling elites,
like then your coercive capital would be legitimate,
like your engagement in armed operations like would be part of a security or law enforcement engagement of the state.
If you're on the other side of the barricades. And this would have become, I think, analytically speaking, very interesting.
Like if the Sadrists would have formed the government, then we would have seen like a different constellation.
But so far,
we have a major overlap between the forces that are affiliated with the PMF and like those who like to dominate the government's decision making.
So that's why as long as they are on the same side of the barricade,
like their behaviour or like even their involvement in illicit economic activities and
some corrupt practices would mostly fall under the term of state sponsored corruption.
As I was discussing here, Rosa, with another friend expert on organised crime and less of organised crime, but maybe like under Assad, his government,
that would not have been that benevolent to this, to this paramilitary umbrella or like to its outgrowth,
then we would have had like different labels and maybe also different approaches.
So I think like currently we have an overlap.
We have a shared interest in protecting the status quo as it is.
And this is one of the most important reasons or factors that have led us to rally around the flag effect rather than to having,
let's say, more controversial, like more destructive engagement, even like the scenarios of having an interest civil war,
because so far, like the stakes are so high and also the incentives to somehow, like, keep it together while of course,
pursuing different independent economic, political and social spiritual agendas like those incentives.
For higher on your question on IRGC.
The most candid answer I've heard during interviews is that it's a wishful thinking.
So if we aspire to implement this model right now, it's in the realm of wishful thinking.
It would be controversial, it would backfire. We have a different demographic set up in Iraq.
We have a very cherished religious establishment in Najaf And Tola al-Sistani,
who is very much against the replication of this model, is far too popular.
So us going against this would cost us dearly and we might lose like this pillar of the
religious legitimacy on our affiliation or like our identity as like the executors,
like the carriers of the fatwa.
But I must also say, like this answer was in 2019, I don't know, like how this exact person would answer the question today.
And I think one step that goes closer to the IRGC,
although is the official government approved month for the creation of a state owned company that's under their own disposal with no economic risk,
because, of course, in case of financial losses and speculations,
the state is there to compensate you and you can decide like what to do with this revenues and how to you.
Use them to increase your patronage networks beyond, let's say, more conventional recipient communities like from within Shia majority provinces.
Just a very quick follow up on that question before we open it up to the audience.
What I meant I should have been more clear was to replicate the steps that the IRGC itself took.
It is safe for the first decade of its existence to rise from or not even rise to the prominence it has today,
but to just like survive on the ground when it was engaged in a civil conflict and
then the Iran-Iraq war and then after the war somewhat organised exactly that.
QUESTION you were asking that when this is an irregular force like fighting on the ground, how do you translate into official military ranks?
The answer it came to my mind was like, Look how the IRGC did it.
They did exactly the same thing. So I was wondering if there is any like decisions in order to make.
Well, we have a successful model there. Do we want to, like follow this?
Not not just deliberation, but actually concrete steps?
There was a draft law that then was in my hands like that didn't come into being,
but there were concrete recommendations, concrete like amendments on how to conduct military promotion within the Hashid,
like how to kind of like calculate what rank three years of fighting in an irregular warfare would equal compare
to someone who has served in the military or life who has gone through the course of the military college.
And there were initial programs like 400 staff like to go on courses within the military college and to also obtain a military decree.
And then for this military decree to be translated in a specific like military rank within the Hashid.
And the other component of the law was discussing like policies of retirement.
But this is still a very controversial topic because the retirement scheme,
so-called like the harshest retirement schemes, are currently being covered by so many different stakeholders.
But everyone is claiming like to be paying something into this fund without like really having a clear oversight on who is covering Qom.
There is also the huge controversial topic of go soldiers.
And as long as, you know, like the existence of security considerations are there, it would be very difficult to push really for having a clear list,
like to know exactly who is on the payroll to digitalise like the whole portfolio.
There have been some accomplishments. For example, the introduction of the key card to have digital salaries transferred to fighters,
and this was one of the approaches to try to pursue some form of consolidation,
you know, like to limit the individual leverage of commanders to decide, okay,
like I have this amount of money being transferred to my account and then like, depending on loyalties or sympathies,
I can transfer that amount to these soldiers, but I can keep an amount for myself and like some part of it can go like to those fighting in Syria.
So that was a bit the rationale there. But there is still a lot of homework to be done.
Thankfully, I am not in the capacity of advising the PMF on consolidation and professionalisation,
but by conducting this research you get quite a lot of ideas of what what can be done.
And to be fair, like there are people like within this, how should network would think about those questions?
Abu Mahdi Al-muhandis was one of those.
A campaign that he had started in March was also to start closing down and raiding our fake offices of the Hashid.
So basically a lot of headquarters were being closed because, like they had claimed legitimacy with the PMF flag and saying,
okay, like they engage them in controversial economic operations.
So practically like this damages our brand and our efforts like to create a clean brand.
So let's close them down. But I haven't seen like more of that coming in in recent years.
Thank you so much. This is more than enough to think about.
Thank you so much. You know, with that, you join me in thanking you, Naruto, for an amazing presentation and expression.