Return of the ‘million man army’: when will Iraq play a regional security role?

It was only a matter of time before Iraq’s regional defence role returned in some shape or the other, and that day may come sooner than many would have expected, with Baghdad pushing to create a national force that would place over a million Iraqis in uniform, some of them in units loyal to Prime Minister Al-Maliki, and aiming to snuff out domestic threats.