As Baghdad tries to please Trump, Iran tells Iraqi militias not to disarm

Responsible Statecraft  |  Elfadil Ibrahim

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani secretly met with Iraqi militia leaders in Baghdad to urge them to retain their arsenals, directly countering Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's September 30 disarmament deadline. This deadline coincides with the scheduled withdrawal of remaining United States military forces from Iraqi bases.

The political standoff emerges as Washington exerts diplomatic pressure through special envoy Tom Barrack, who has vetoed candidates for Iraq’s defense and interior ministries to isolate factions aligned with former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Simultaneously, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has slashed Iraqi oil revenues by two-thirds, forcing Baghdad to ship discounted crude via Abu Dhabi’s state oil firm ADNOC. To evade disarmament, Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf proposed concealing heavy weaponry or moving it to Iran. While Asaib Ahl al-Haq conducted symbolic scrap handovers, groups like Kataib Hezbollah refuse disarmament following United States air strikes.

Comment

The attempt to integrate irregular Shia paramilitaries into the formal chain of command reveals the structural limit of Iraq's statutory security framework. While the Popular Mobilization Forces were legally incorporated into the Iraqi Armed Forces in 2016, operational authority over core strike assets remains strictly factional. Leaders like Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi of Kataib Hezbollah retain independent command nodes that bypass the Ministry of Defence, rendering top-down administrative orders from Baghdad functionally unenforceable during high-intensity crises.

This command bifurcation severely degrades joint targeting coordination and air defense integration across the Iraqi Security Forces. When paramilitaries operate autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicle launch sites without deconfliction through Baghdad's Joint Operations Command, state forces face heightened risks of fratricide and uncontrolled escalation against external military contingents.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Kataib Hezbollah maintains command authority over its long-range strike assets outside Baghdad's Joint Operations Command, how can the Iraqi Ministry of Defence establish credible operational control over state security forces?

The pattern suggests that formal administrative integration through the Popular Mobilization Forces framework will remain nominal as long as key factions retain separate command structures and foreign patronage. The evidence indicates that Baghdad lacks the military leverage to forcibly disarm these groups without triggering internal factional warfare. Consequently, institutional command over Iraq's national security apparatus is likely to remain fragmented.

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