Iraqi leaders face balancing act as Iran conflict exposes deep rifts
Of all the countries being pulled into the US-Israeli war on Iran, it is Iraq – a country that still bears the emotional and physical scars of the last time the Americans tried to reshape the region by force – where the conflict has exposed some of the deepest rifts. The war is dividing those who see the attacks on Iran as a way to end Tehran’s longstanding influence over Iraqi politics from the self-declared loyalists of the Islamic republic, and cutting through state institutions, armed forces and Shia Islamist parties. Exacerbating tensions is the fact that the war has struck during a precarious power vacuum in Iraq after the caretaker leader Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, whose coalition won the largest share of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, stepped aside. Hours after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war, factions from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella body of Iran-backed armed groups, vowed to drag the US into a long war of attrition that would “leave no American presence in the region generally, especially in Iraq”. The group has claimed responsibility for scores of drone and missile attacks on targets in Iraq and neighbouring countries, such the US base in Erbil and the city’s international airport, Camp Victoria near Baghdad international airport, and compounds of US oil companies in Basra and northern Iraq, forcing the country to suspend production in big oilfields. In response, unclaimed airstrikes that have been widely attributed to US and Israeli forces have hit positions across the country, including in Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad, a stronghold for Kataib Hezbollah, one of the main pro-Iran factions, as well as other resistance forces’ bases in the south and north of the country, killing half a dozen commanders and scores of fighters. In Mosul, videos purported to show attack helicopters firing on checkpoints, while Iraqi army units were struck by as yet unknown forces in the western desert, killing one soldier and wounding three. In another sign that Iraq is being dragged further into the war, the US embassy in Baghdad’s green zone has been attacked repeatedly and it warned on Thursday that pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq might attack other parts of the city in the coming days. Kataib Hezbollah is also suspected to have been responsible for the abduction of a US reporter, Shelly Kittleson, late on Tuesday. The frequency of attacks had declined in recent days after Kataib Hezbollah declared a pause. But the group did not announce an extension on Wednesday night when the pause expired. The Iraqi government had sought to pursue an “Iraq first” policy, largely staying out of the post-7 October wars convulsing the region and trying to project an image of security services in control. As the conflict expands, Iraqi leaders have been trying to continue their balancing act, on one hand denouncing the killing of Khamenei and sending official condolences, while on the other rejecting attempts by Tehran to drag Iraq into the conflict, calling on security forces to go after those who threatened “diplomatic missions and oilfields”, and even going as far as firing a number of military and intelligence officers. But this balancing act is complicated by the fact that pro-Iran groups are also members of the PMU (Popular Mobilisation Units), a sprawling institution that is in theory part of the official army and under the authority of the commander-in-chief, but in reality operates according to its own agenda. These factions claim resistance legitimacy when attacking US targets, then denounce the strikes on their PMU brigade bases as attacks on Iraqi sovereignty.
This contradiction exposes the weakness of the state, and the absurdity is not lost on Iraqis, with a joke circulating that while the US and Israel were attacking Iran, and Iran was attacking Israel and the Gulf countries, only Iraq was being bombed by everyone: Israel, the US, Iran, and Iraqis themselves. Though Washington and Baghdad have claimed to “intensify cooperation” to prevent attacks and ensure Iraqi territory is not used to launch assaults against US facilities, the US has blamed the Iraqi government for failing to prevent “terrorist attacks in or from Iraqi territory”. “Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups may claim to be associated with the Iraqi government,” the US embassy said. The Pentagon has said helicopters have carried out strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq during the war. Washington has strongly denied claims it has targeted Iraqi security forces. Furthermore, a looming financial disaster hangs over Iraq as a consequence of the crisis over the strait of Hormuz and the loss of oil revenue, which accounts for more than 90% of the country’s budget.
Even before the latest escalation, US pressure and the threat of sanctions had forced some members of the pro-Iran Shia alliance in Iraq’s parliament, known as the Coordination Framework, to distance themselves from the more militant factions, fearing US economic and financial sanctions that could restrict the Iraqi state’s access to dollars – which in turn would cripple its ability to pay salaries and threaten the fragile post-2003 order, to say nothing of jeopardising the vast fortunes that the parties’ leaders have accumulated over the past two decades. As the US was building up its forces in the region, leaders from the Coordination Framework bowed to American pressure and withdrew the nomination of the former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is seen as close to Iran, to return to the top job. This followed a humiliating direct intervention by the new US envoy Tom Barrack, and indeed Donald Trump himself, who wrote in a social media post: “Last time Maliki was in power, the Country descended into poverty and total chaos … Because of his insane policies and ideologies, if elected, the United States of America will no longer help Iraq.” An aide to a senior political leader said of the Shia alliance: “After the killing of Khamenei, they are trying to further distance themselves from the factions. Some of their statements recently feel as if they were issued by the director of a humanitarian NGO, and not the head of a militia that built its legitimacy on fighting the Americans.” *** Many of the fighters and commanders of the resistance factions came of age in the aftermath of the US occupation of Iraq. Back then, Iran pursued a dual strategy: cultivating political and economic influence among Iraq’s new rulers, many of whom had spent years in exile in Tehran, and training and equipping a younger generation of men to help in their fight against American occupation forces. In the sectarian warfare that swept across the region after the failed uprisings of the Arab spring, Iran rallied its allies and all the forces it had cultivated over previous decades: young Afghan men whose fathers had fought in Iran’s wars, Iraqi militias whose commanders had splintered from larger and older Shia organisations to form the resistance factions, the Houthis in Yemen, and, crucially, Hezbollah, which had played a significant role in building the military capacities of these various forces.
While the majority of these forces were Shia, not all pledged religious allegiance to Khamenei. Some shared Tehran’s goal of expelling foreign powers from the region, while others sought Iranian support to fight their local wars – against jihadists, western-backed militias or, in the case of Yemen, the Saudi-Emirati coalition. A few were opportunistic mercenaries who floated across the war-scarred region. Collectively, these forces are known as the “axis of resistance”. The axis suffered its most serious defeat after the 7 October attacks when Israeli jets dropped more than 80 large bunker-buster bombs on a block of residential buildings in the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, killing Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and several senior commanders. “The killing of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah affected the Iraqi resistance factions more than that of Sayed al-Khamenei,” said an insider close to the pro-Iran factions. “Yes, Sayed al-Khamenei is the leader, but Sayed Hassan had a direct appeal to many of the commanders. He and Hezbollah combined fighting prowess with a discourse and a political vision. This is very much lacking for the Iraqi factions.” The insider added: “This is why if you look at their activities on the ground now, you will see it is just a reaction. They don’t have a local Iraqi strategy; they don’t have political depth. They follow events, and once the attacks on Iran stop, they will stop.” Yet the impact of the recent war went far beyond the resistance factions’ drones, he added. The fact that a major Shia leader was killed, followed by assassinations in Iraq and elsewhere, has shaken the country’s streets, especially in the south where massive demonstrations erupted spontaneously after the killing of Khamenei. The US and its air force have been pounding Iraqi cities, sometimes frequently, often continuously, for more than 30 years since that first wave of long-range bombers lit Baghdad’s skies with explosions in the early hours of the Gulf war back in 1991. For Iraqis, then, the images coming from Iran are all too familiar: people walking through streets strewn with debris inspecting the previous day’s destruction, searching for groceries, checking on loved ones; families cowering at home, listening to the not so distant explosions, windows rattling. Mothers weeping over dead children. The anxiety, the fear, the great balls of fire rising into the sky. Even the black acid rain that followed the burning of massive fuel storage depots had its mirror in Iraq. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has reported on Iraq for the Guardian since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003
