Amid shifting regional power and U.S. pressure, Iraq’s post-Tishreen politics reveal Tehran’s shrinking leverage as militias face disarmament, elections loom, and Baghdad seeks space between two rival powers.
Since the Tishreen uprising of 2019, Iraq has been moving away from the orbit of the Islamic Republic — and that distance is widening.
The uprising began as a reaction to the visible hand of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in installing Adel Abdul-Mahdi as prime minister — a move that alienated other Iraqi factions. Within a year, Abdul-Mahdi’s government was engulfed by scandals over corruption, unemployment, and collapsing public services. Iraqi society, long caught between dependence on Tehran for security and on Washington for political stability, entered a new phase.
When a “hand-picked” government became the target of popular protests, it was only natural that anger would turn toward the puppeteer. Soleimani traveled to Baghdad to contain that crisis, and in early January 2020 he was killed by a U.S. drone strike. His death marked a turning point: relations between Baghdad and Tehran began shifting from “shared destiny” to gradual separation.
But the flames of that uprising never fully went out. In the streets of Najaf, Basra, and Nasiriyah, chants of “Iran barra barra” (“Iran, out, out!”) voiced the will of a generation that no longer wanted its future defined under the shadow of the Quds Force. The Islamic Republic and its allies in the so-called “Axis of Resistance” dismissed them as dupes of the U.S. embassy, but as long as the material roots of discontent remain, slogans cannot cure the problem.
Six years on, demands for political and economic independence from Tehran have spread across Iraqi society and even within parts of its ruling elite. The events after October 7, 2023 — the Gaza war and the weakening of the “Axis of Resistance” — have further limited Iran’s ability to put the “genie of separation” back in the bottle.
A failed attempt to build a shadow state
Iran’s influence in Iraq has long rested on a network of armed groups and politicians tied to the Quds Force: Kata’ib Hezbollah, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and Harakat al-Nujaba. Formed during the war against ISIS under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), these groups became the backbone of Iran’s axis in Iraq — from controlling border crossings to operating in Syria and launching missile strikes on U.S. and Israeli targets.
But since 2023, Washington has changed its Iraq policy. According to media reports, the U.S. has launched a multi-layered strategy to undermine the “Iran-linked shadow government” in Baghdad. More than a hundred Iraqi individuals and companies have been sanctioned, including the PMF-linked Al-Muhandis Company, PMF chief Faleh al-Fayyad, al-Siyada coalition leader Khamis al-Khanjar, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais al-Khazali. At the same time, Washington vetoed amendments to the PMF law and warned Baghdad that granting new powers to Iran-backed militias would mean losing U.S. political and financial support.
The proposed PMF law, introduced by pro-Iran factions in parliament, would give the PMF full legal recognition as an independent military and intelligence institution within the Iraqi state. It would elevate its commander to ministerial rank and grant him a permanent seat on the National Security Council. Most critically, it would authorize the PMF to run its own security and intelligence service with powers to conduct “special operations” — effectively institutionalizing a state within the state.
This was happening precisely when Iran was at its weakest regional position in two decades. The U.S. State Department said that the continued activities of Iran-backed militias “threaten Iraq’s sovereignty” and that these groups are “squandering Iraq’s national resources for Tehran’s benefit.” The message from Washington was unmistakable: Iraq must choose between stability and continued dependence on the Islamic Republic.
Competing for influence: Washington and Tehran in Baghdad
Tehran has not stood idle. After Soleimani’s death, Khamenei and Qaani — his successor at the Quds Force — tried to rebuild Iran’s political leverage in Baghdad.
Sources close to Shiite factions say Qaani has made several secret trips to Baghdad in recent months, carrying messages from Khamenei to leaders of the Coordination Framework of Shiite parties. The message was clear: preserve Shiite unity, protect the PMF, and prevent the collapse of the Axis of Resistance under U.S. and Israeli pressure.
But the balance of power has shifted. Washington has appointed Mark Saffaya as special envoy to Iraq to dismantle the economic and security networks of the IRGC in Baghdad. He played a key role in the deal that led to the release of Israeli researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov from Kata’ib Hezbollah’s custody. Since then, his mission has been focused on the “quiet disengagement” of Iranian proxy groups from Iraq’s security scene.
Under an informal agreement between Baghdad and Washington, the U.S. and Israel have promised to refrain from targeting militia leaders as long as they abide by a no-attack policy.
Israeli pressure and Washington’s “final warning”
In late October and early November 2025, new developments once again turned Iraq into a heated front. Israeli media outlets Maariv and Walla reported that the Israeli military and Mossad were preparing to counter the “growing threat from Iraqi factions aligned with Iran.” Tehran, the reports said, had invested heavily in arming these groups to launch missile or drone strikes on Israel if ordered.
In response, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced the construction of an “Eastern Security Barrier” along the Jordanian border — a multi-layered system to prevent any ground or drone infiltration from the Iraq–Syria–Jordan axis. Meanwhile, several airstrikes on weapons depots and supply routes near the Iran–Iraq border were attributed to Israel, reportedly with Mossad’s participation.
Simultaneously, the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke directly with Iraq’s Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi, delivering what Iraqi sources called “the most serious and final warning.” According to al-Abbasi, Washington made it clear that if Iraqi militias respond militarily to any future U.S. actions in the region, they will face direct American strikes. The call, described as long and tense, also covered drones, intelligence cooperation, and helicopter purchases. It appears this exchange marks the start of a new stage in the “battle for influence in Baghdad”: either the Quds Force’s proxies disarm and integrate into the state, or they will be treated as hostile targets.
Upcoming elections and Iraq’s political crossroads
The next parliamentary election will be a turning point. Iraqi political sources say Washington’s goal is to roll back Iran’s influence to its pre-2012 level — before the PMF and Tehran’s proxies became central to Iraq’s decision-making. The U.S. aims to support an alliance of technocrats and Western-leaning politicians capable of forming a government independent of Tehran.
Khamenei, in his latest message, has insisted that Iraq’s next prime minister must come from within the Shiite Coordination Framework. But others, including Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, argue that “the choice of Iraq’s next premier will ultimately depend on Donald Trump’s approval,” and that Washington’s condition for any new government will be “an end to the proxy file.”
Still, many Iraqi observers warn that excluding Iran-aligned Shiite groups from government formation could push the country to the brink of another security crisis, similar to 2021 when clashes between Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement and Coordination Framework militias turned Baghdad into a battlefield.
A fragile triangle: Washington, Tehran, Baghdad
Despite the underlying tensions, both Iran and the U.S. are for now trying to avoid direct confrontation. Tehran has reportedly sidelined Hezbollah in Lebanon from managing the Iraqi “resistance portfolio” to prevent escalation with the U.S. and Israel, focusing instead on preserving political influence. Meanwhile, some Iraqi factions are slowly distancing themselves from Tehran in case global power alignments shift after the Gaza war.
Political change in Iraq has never been easy. The ambitions of external actors have often collapsed at the edge of Iraqi reality. The lesson of recent history is simple: in Baghdad, the distance between plan and outcome is wide.
The October 7 regional fallout, the setbacks of the Axis of Resistance, and rising U.S.–Israeli pressure have sharply weakened Iran’s capacity to recover its old dominance in Iraq. Yet the absence of a coherent alternative and the deep divisions among Iraq’s Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish elites make it equally hard for Iraq to completely break free of Tehran.
The country’s future now hinges on two simultaneous contests — the battle of elections and the battle of disarmament. If the U.S. manages to help form a government led by national, non-sectarian forces, Iraq may gradually distance itself from Iran’s orbit.
