Military Times quotes Rafik Hariri Center Nonresident Fellow Ramzy Mardini on changes in US strategy in the fight against ISIS:
That signals a significant shift, said Ramzi Mardini, a former State Department official and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“The U.S. has effectively changed its position, coming to the realization that Shiite militias are a necessary evil in the fight against ISIS,” Mardini told Military Times in an email Wednesday.
US officials say they will “continue bombing ISIS targets as long as the Shiite militias are integrated as part of a command-and-control structure answering to the central government [of Iraq], but this structure could be just something on paper, not an actual institutional development playing out on the ground,” Mardini said.