October 14, 2022
The Islamic Republic no longer enjoys a good name inside Iraq, not even among Iraqi Shiites, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper says a bitter year-long struggle for power has one point uniting the rival Shiite factions: None of them wants to be seen as too close to Tehran.
For almost two decades since the US invasion ousted Saddam Hussein, Iran built strong ties with its neighbor, opposing American efforts and backing a network of militias that helped Tehran extend its reach. Iran helped to keep Iraq’s Shia majority unified and able to wield power, often to Tehran’s benefit.
Now, the Journal wrote August 22, Iraq’s Shia factions are deeply divided and it calls that a sign of Iran’s weakening influence over the country.
One side, led by cleric Moqtada as-Sadr spent a month occupying the parliament grounds in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The other, the Coalition Framework, is seeking to form Iraq’s next government and is led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Sadr’s fierce rival and a politician long close to Iran although 15 years ago, when he was prime minister, he was close to the US and often moved to check Iranian advances.
“Iran gives us advice, but we don’t listen to all Iranian advice,” says Fahad al-Jubouri, a senior official in the National Wisdom Movement, a part of the Coalition Framework.
Sadr, 48, has strongly shunned association with the Iranians.
The reluctance to be linked to Iran reflects a widespread weariness with Tehran, a potential threat to Iran’s goal of limiting US influence in Iraq while using its neighbor’s territory and airspace to move weapons and other supplies to Syria and Lebanon.
Many Iraqis blame Tehran for empowering powerful militias that fought the so-called Islamic State but are now perceived as armed wings of Shiite political factions and, to some, as enforcers of a corrupt status quo.
It is those militias that make the crisis so volatile, raising the prospect that a fight so far waged mostly peacefully could turn violent. And, late in August, many of Sadr’s supporters took to Baghdad’s streets in angry opposition to the Iranian-backed militias.
Armed clashes between Iraq’s heavily-armed Shiite factions would be one of the worst possible outcomes for Tehran. But an obvious Iranian effort to tilt toward Sadr’s opponents could inflame the standoff, analysts told The Wall Street Journal before the latest outbreak.
“Iran’s major and first aim right now is to prevent any Shia-Shia fight because such fighting could lead to loss of Iranian influence over Iraq,” said Laith Shubber, a former adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who stepped down in 2019.
The US has largely been a bystander. The roughly 2,500 American troops still stationed in Iraq are now narrowly focused on training the Iraqi army and supporting US forces in next-door Syria.
Kadhim al-Fartousi, a spokesman for Sayed al-Shuhada, one of the main militias, said Tehran’s unpopularity after years of intervening in Iraqi affairs is causing Iran to hold back. “The Iranians told us … they suffered negative feedback from Iraqis, so this time they will leave Iraqis to handle their affairs by themselves,” Fartousi said.
Behind the scenes, Tehran has, however, been active. Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, the chief of the Qods Force, arrived in Iraq in early August for talks on resolving the impasse. But Qaani made no public statements and the Shia representatives he saw said nothing publicly about the meetings.
Sadr, who has met with the Iranian general in the past, declined to see him, said an aide.
Qaani’s visit highlighted how much Iran’s role has changed since the death of Qasem Soleymani, the previous Qods Force commander, an inspirational figure to many Shiites. Qaani has had less success at smoothing the internal Shia disputes.
“Qaani is different than Soleymani. He is weaker. Things are not being brought together,” said Jubouri.
Beyond the death of Soleymani, the protests since 2019 and pressure from ordinary Iraqis for a government less dominated by sectarian blocs is also threatening Iran’s influence in Baghdad.
“The Iraqi public right now is pushing against sectarianism and really wants more of a nationalist government,” said Marsin Alshamary, a research fellow in Iraqi politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. “This is not a good case scenario for Iran because it weakens the political parties that it is close to.”
The Shia militias that Tehran has backed, first in fighting the US military presence after the overthrow of Saddam and more recently against the Islamic State, have shown signs of internal divisions, further challenging Iran’s control. Some hardline militias have continued to carry out rocket attacks on US facilities in Iraq, while others have pledged to abide by Iraqi government orders against such attacks.
Tehran itself has been focused more on negotiations with the US to revive the 2015 nuclear deal than on Iraq’s internal politics, Shubber told The Wall Street Journal.
An Iran weakened in Iraq, even if only temporarily, could embolden its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, which has sought to strengthen its influence in Baghdad. It could potentially complicate Tehran’s smuggling of missiles and other weapons to its proxy militias in Syria and Lebanon.
The most public display of the Shiite schism is the hundreds of Sadr’s followers, most of them dressed in black, who occupied the grounds of Iraq’s parliament for a month, living in tents and obstructing lawmakers from meeting to vote on forming a new government.
Iraq’s caretaker government, headed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, convened talks aimed at resolving the crisis, but Sadr’s representatives didn’t attend. Sadr vowed to continue the protests until his calls for dissolution of parliament, new elections and changes to the Iraqi constitution were met demands that he says amount to a “revolution.”
The onetime leader of a rebellion against US forces following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Sadr became the country’s key political power broker after his movement won the largest share of seats in elections last October.
His attempts over months to form a government with Sunni and Kurdish legislators collapsed when his Shia opponents refused to attend a parliament session for a vote. In June, he ordered his 73 supporters in parliament to resign, shifting to street protests to block the Coalition Framework from forming a government.
The tent city was a naked display of Sadr’s ability to turn out his supporters, many from Sadr City, the vast Baghdad slum named for his father, an esteemed Shiite cleric allegedly murdered by the government of Saddam Hussein.
But in late August, an angry Sadr announced he was quitting politics (something he has done periodically over the years, but always returning to politics later) while demanding new elections. It was then that many of his followers turned to violence.
However, in mid-October the Shiite parties opposed to Sadr got their act together, apparently with no help from Iran. They elected a new president, Abdul-Latif Rashid, ousting Barham Salih. And Rashid swiftly nominated Mohammad Shia as-Sudani to be prime minister.
Sudani must now put together a cabinet that can win a majority in the Majlis. Sadr has said he will not cooperate with Sudani in any way. This gives the Iranian-backed parties control over the government, assuming the cabinet is approved. But it remains to be seen how the new government will treat relations with Iran. Will it nuzzle up to Tehran as in the past, or will it work with Tehran behind the scenes while saying little or nothing about relations in public, or might it actually tell Iran to get lost.