"On October 20, Iraqi Security Forces battled Kurdish Peshmerga near the town of Altun Kupri. The Iraqi forces cradled U.S.-made M-16s and rode on black-coated American Humvees. The Peshmerga, defending a berm near the town, were also shown on video using U.S.-made Humvees, painted olive green. If there is a symbol of U.S. policy gone awry it is that these two partners in the coalition that has so successfully fought ISIS are now turning their guns on each other. Most troubling is the presence of Iranian-backed Shia militias called Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) among the Iraqi fighters. Since the fall of 2016, PMUs have been officially part of the Iraqi Security Forces. The recent developments in the complex, simmering conflict between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil have pitted an array of forces against one another and provide a worrying picture of the future to come in a post-ISIS Iraq. ISIS hasn’t even been fully defeated yet and the underlying divisions in Iraq have already re-emerged."
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452968/american-iraq-policy-iranian-gains-iraqi-kurdish-clashes-worrisome
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452968/american-iraq-policy-iranian-gains-iraqi-kurdish-clashes-worrisome