July 19, 2019
Iraq’s prime minister is once again trying to bring the country’s Iran-backed militias under the control of the Iraqi armed forces and out from under the command of Tehran.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi issued a decree ordering the militias, which fall under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), to come to heel by July 31 or be deemed “illegitimate.”
The PMF, a collection of four dozen mostly Shia groups that fought the Islamic State alongside the Iraqi army and number more than 140,000 fighters, technically fall under Abdul-Mahdi’s authority, but much of the PMF’s top brass is politically aligned with Iran.
The militias were created after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, when their mission was to fight the American occupation, but have since gained outsized influence in politics and the economy, which some see as a threat to Iraq’s security and very sovereignty.
Qais al-Khazali, the leader of one of the most powerful Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq, tweeted that the move to integrate the PMF into the armed forces was a step in the right direction. Some thought that comment was just paying lip service to the growing concern among Shiites that Iran is running Iraq and leeching the economy.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist Shia cleric who has broken with Tehran, also welcomed the decree, saying his faction, known as the Peace Brigades, would implement it. In a tweet, he described the decision as an important “first step” toward building a state. But he also expressed concern that the decision would not be implemented seriously.
It is not clear how Abdul-Mahdi will enforce the order, which his predecessor, Heyder al-Abadi, also announced but failed to bring to fruition.
Kirk Sowell, an Iraq expert at Utica Risk Services, a Middle East-focused political risk firm, told the Telegraph of Britain he did not expect the order to have much impact.
“Mahdi is doing it as an assertion of his authority as commander-in-chief, since there are so many open doubts about it,” he said. “Abadi issued a very similar order back in 2016 and it really did not change anything other than forcing militia political leaders to give lip service to the division between politics and martial activity.”