Ali al-Zaidi's race to save Iraq from the US-Iran war

Iraq remains a battlefield in the ongoing war between the US and Iran, despite the efforts of its government to stay out of the conflict.

Airstrikes conducted by the US and Saudi Arabia on 29 July hit numerous sites across Iraq associated with the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), killing and wounding dozens of fighters.

The strikes came in response to attacks on Saudi Arabia two days earlier that Riyadh and Washington said came from Iraqi territory. They blamed the militias that sit largely outside the control of the state, which Iraq’s new prime minister Ali al-Zaidi has pledged to disarm, and the Houthi movement, both of which are part of Iran’s Axis of Resistance.

This complicates matters for Iraq’s new prime minister, who has vowed to tackle instability at home and move his country past decades of conflict. He has set a deadline of 30 September for the militias to disarm and put themselves under the control of the state.

This confluence of regional and domestic factors makes for an exceedingly tricky task.

“While extra‑curricular armed operations by resistance groups have been a persistent challenge for successive Iraqi prime ministers since the territorial defeat of Islamic State, the timing now is particularly explosive,” Dr Inna Rudolf, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS) at King’s College London, told The New Arab.

“It strains Zaidi’s efforts to steer clear of regional escalation and prevent Iraq from being turned into a battlefield, and it undermines his drive to diversify Iraq's economic partnerships,” Rudolf added.

He must convince Iraq’s influential powerbrokers, particularly those inside the PMF, that their self-interest and the future of their institutions lie in consolidation under the state and adherence to a peaceful, unified foreign policy.

Iraq's volatile position

In the early hours of 29 July, US and Saudi jets hit positions belonging to the PMF. A security source told The New Arab that these included locations in Basra, Wasit, Karbala, Sala al-Din, Nineveh, Baghdad, and Diyala governorates.

Zaidi claimed that the attacks did not originate in Iraq. The Shia Coordination Framework condemned the attacks as a “blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

The strike in Diyala killed several IRGC officers, according to Iranian diplomats. Reportedly, one of those killed was a member of Yemen's Houthi movement, potentially showing greater involvement inside Iraq by other members of the Axis of Resistance.

More hardline forces issued a statement under the name of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) vowing retaliation following the Arbaeen pilgrimage, which concludes on 5 August.

US President Trump later added to the confusion by saying that the US-Saudi airstrikes had been coordinated with Iraqi authorities, which Baghdad denied.

The attacks scuttled a planned trip by Zaidi to Saudi Arabia, scheduled for 30 July, which had been framed as a critical set piece in his efforts to drive Iraq towards peaceful and economically progressive re-engagement with the Gulf and the broader region.

It would have followed successful visits to the US, Qatar, Iran, and Turkey that resulted in the signing of numerous economic deals and bolstered Zaidi’s domestic and international standing.

Instead, the airstrikes back and forth highlighted Iraq’s fraught geopolitical position and Zaidi’s narrow pathway towards success, caught between his own ambitions and the realities of governance.

“Iraq sits in a volatile position - an administration seeking to rebuild ties with the Gulf and the US, while non‑state armed groups with state backers and external patrons take risks to honour transnational resistance loyalties,” Rudolf told The New Arab.

“The latest militia activity, coming right after the US visit, has put Zaidi in a more precarious position: his resolve is being tested while the political opportunities he could have harnessed look limited or inadequate,” she added.

Zaidi's limited room for manoeuvre

Zaidi cannot do anything to change Iraq’s geographic location at the centre of a war that could continue to expand, nor can he bend the more powerful state actors around him to his vision. Instead, the solution must come from within Zaidi’s own house.

Many within the Shia Coordination Framework support the PMF’s transition into a more ordinary state security agency, viewing that as key to its future. While others, particularly those closer to Iran, see value in continued “resistance.”

Rudolf argues that the prime minister should appeal to these informal powerbrokers to “support stricter measures against factions that act autonomously and violate the government’s foreign policy line”.

“It is premature to forecast a permanent abandonment of transnational ‘resistance’ as an ideological framework, but what is realistic is a cost-benefit politics: which modes of resistance solidarity are tolerable without provoking retaliation or losing public support by dragging Iraq into the US-Iran quagmire,” she added.

This also satisfies the political and financial self-interest of these groups, which wield significant economic power and are increasingly influential in parliament and the government.

Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), which is led by Qais al-Khazali, presents an interesting case. In the past, it was responsible for numerous attacks on US interests, as well as participating in regional conflicts in Syria alongside other members of the Axis of Resistance.

However, it responded positively to Zaidi’s call for the militias to disarm and severed ties with the PMF on 2 June.

Influential figures within the militia ecosystem may come to view this as a successful transition and become inspired to follow suit. They could be coaxed along by “a more generous, incremental timetable for disarmament, potentially facilitated by bargaining with PMF networks,” Rudolf suggested.

Understandably, this may seem overly generous to the Iraqi militias, who are responsible for dragging Iraq to a place that is detrimental to its domestic and foreign policy interests. But it is clear that they cannot be brought around to this thinking purely through punitive measures.

This process will become even harder if attacks by the US and others continue, she warned.

Therefore, Zaidi must engage in careful diplomacy and coordination with all relevant parties to ensure that he has the space on both foreign and domestic fronts to accomplish this task - something that has eluded all of his predecessors.

Even so, Rudolf acknowledged that “given the current geopolitical volatility, the familiar strategy of leaning on political and material incentives for restraint rather than confronting rogue factions directly may prove insufficient”.

Indeed, the ongoing war - and Iran’s strategy of gradually expanding it in response to continued US pressure - will mean that Iraq will continue to be a battlefield.

The US is likely to continue to launch airstrikes on Iraq, as it has for various purposes for the last 36 years. Saudi Arabia will probably not back down as long as the Houthis are active on Iraqi territory. Jordan and Syria have also threatened retaliation if the Iraqi militias launch attacks on them.

Meanwhile, Iran also continues to attack targets in Iraq, including Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, US military bases, and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga bases.

Baghdad’s room for manoeuvre is therefore exceedingly narrow.

As a result, Zaidi’s best bet is to work carefully on militia disarmament, while calling on external powers to limit their actions against Iraq.

It is a hopelessly hopeful formula, but the prime minister has few options and little leverage. He will need all the aid and tolerance he can muster.

Winthrop Rodgers is an associate fellow at Chatham House, a journalist, and a researcher who covers politics, human rights, and political economy, primarily focusing on Iraq and the Kurdistan Region

Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @wrodgers2

Edited by Charlie Hoyle