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Iran's Influence in Iraq Faces Critical Challenge
How would Baghdad be affected if Tehran abandoned its support? This question has sparked a heated debate within Iraqi circles, as discussions intensify over an American condition that ties progress in the nuclear file to Iran halting its support for proxy groups in the region.On March 13, 2025, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov revealed that Washington is demanding Tehran cease its backing of certain groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria before a new nuclear deal can be reached, describing these demands as "concerning and disturbing."But can Iran comply with this new condition that directly threatens its influence in the Middle East? And what are the potential consequences for Iraq if such a scenario unfolds?Iran's VulnerabilityRegarding Iran’s potential abandonment of its Iraqi militia allies, Foreign Affairs magazine published a report on March 11, discussing Iran’s influence in Iraq and the possibility of Tehran losing a crucial piece of the regional domino.“Ever since its revolution in 1979, Iran has cultivated a network of proxies and friends throughout the Middle East. For years, this strategy proved successful. Slowly but surely, Tehran’s “axis of resistance” gained influence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, where it railed against Israel and the United States,” the magazine reported.“But events over the past year have upended the regional order. Today, Iran has largely lost control of two of those four Arab capitals. Israel’s war in Lebanon has decimated Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed militant group that dominated Beirut. In December, Turkish-backed Sunni forces wrested control of Damascus from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, an Iranian ally that had controlled Syria for half a century. Now, the Islamic Republic is terrified that another domino might fall.”“Security forces in Yemen and in Iran itself appear strong and brutal enough to maintain control of their own populations. But Tehran’s lackeys in Iraq are getting nervous. Iran-backed Iraqi militias attacked U.S. forces and Israeli targets regularly throughout 2024, killing three U.S. soldiers in a drone strike in March of that year. But these militias appear to have changed course.”“They have not launched a strike since early December—a sign that they are growing more fearful of attracting Washington’s attention.”“Iraq’s politicians also seem more eager than usual to appease the United States. Iraq’s government is led by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and his Coordination Framework, a coalition c...
Politics in a Parallel Universe: Iraq's Leadership Crisis and the Iran War
The Iraqi government and the leaders of the country’s ruling political factions have every reason for alarm. The US–Israeli war on Iran—and its profound consequences for Iraq’s security, political stability, and economy—has produced a national crisis. Yet in Baghdad, political debate is still fixated on who will occupy which positions, what authority and resources they will control, and how to manage factional and personal rivalries through shifting, short-term bargains. Iraq’s political factions seem to be living in a parallel universe. Their discussions do not seriously engage with how Iraq can navigate the current crisis with minimal losses. Most important, Iraq’s ruling political elite—long accustomed to calibrating its choices to maintain a degree of balance between Iranian and US interests—did not adequately prepare itself for a wartime scenario in which even minimal common ground between Washington and Tehran became difficult to sustain. The April 27, 2026, nomination of businessman Ali al-Zaidi for the position of prime minister will do little to improve the situation. Al-Zaidi’s candidacy emerged only after a long delay in determining who would form Iraq’s government following the November 2025 parliamentary elections. This delay clearly violated the timetable specified in the constitution. Owing to internal rivalries among its constituent factions, the Shia coalition that won the elections, the Coordination Framework, had struggled to agree on a candidate who was acceptable to its competing factions. The US–Israeli war on Iran has produced a national crisis. One potential early candidate for the premiership, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, had already been vetoed by President Donald Trump in a January 2026 Truth Social post. The outgoing prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, had wagered on securing US support for his re-appointment without provoking Iranian opposition. Yet al-Sudani lost Washington’s confidence because of his inability to restrain Iran-aligned armed factions from taking sides in the current war. Iraqi militias such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and a wing of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq have responded to the war on Iran by attacking US forces as well as Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. The United States and Israel then retaliated with strikes against the leaders of these factions, killing several of their operatives as well as Iranian military officials overseeing...
Saudi Arabia and Iraq Drawn Into Intensifying Shadow Conflict Amid ...
Saudi Arabia and Iraq are emerging as central arenas in a widening and increasingly covert confrontation that analysts describe as a "shadow war within a war," driven by Iran-aligned militia activity and escalating regional retaliation risks. Over a period of more than five weeks, Iran-backed armed groups operating inside Iraq have carried out a sustained campaign of drone and missile ...
Iraq caught between Western pressure and Iranian-backed militias
Proxy war Late last month, Arab neighbors sent Iraq's government a similar warning: Get control over Iran's proxies.
