Gradualism in Addressing the Arms File and Strengthening the National Command and Control System
Dr. Amer Abd Rasan Al-Mawsawi
The gravity of major security issues is not measured merely by the number of
armed individuals or weapons they involve, but rather by the degree of their
entanglement with the institutions of the state, society, the economy, and politics,
and by the number of interests, structures, and authorities that have accumulated
around them over the years. For this reason, the most dangerous way for a state to
confront a complex security issue is to reduce it to a single manifestation and then
attempt to resolve it through a single decision.
The Iraqi experience has taught us that security problems that develop over years
do not disappear in a single day, and that a successful state does not charge into the
crux of a problem at its most rigid point, but rather begins by dismantling its
periphery, trimming its extensions, and separating its components from one
another, until it encapsulates the essence of the problem in its true size, and then
proceeds to address it at the lowest possible security, political, and social cost.
From this perspective, we view the issue of the weapons of armed factions and the
strengthening of the capabilities of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)
Commission. What is required is not backtracking on the principle of confining
weapons to the state, but rather selecting the most realistic and safe path to achieve
it.
