The impaired Iran has an Iraq that wants to suppress extremists supported by Tehran in the country
With Iranian influence by decaying in the Middle East, Iraqi government They want armed groups, including fractions within Iranian Islamic resistance in Iraq (IRI), laid weapons and join the forces of state security or integrate into state -recognized popular mobilization forces.
The Foreign Minister of Iraq, Fuad Hussein, recently told Reuters that armed groups operating within Iraq and external state controls are unacceptable.
“Many political leaders, many political parties have begun to raise the debate and I hope that we will be able to convince the leaders of these groups to lay weapons and then be part of the armed forces under the responsibility of the Government,” Hussein said Reuters.
The US, Iraqi forces release the air attack on ISIS goals, kill terrorists hiding in a cave
There is also a fear in the region, and the vacuum of power left The fall of Bashara Al-Assad in Syria and a decimated hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, that Iraq can be beside the fall.
Jonathan Shanzer, Executive Director of the Democracy Defense Foundation, told Fox News Digital that the collapse of the Assad regime was the time to make the Iraqi government a move against Iranian militia.
The Iraqi flag flies to the protest. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
“It is the Iraqis that wonders if they are next and they are all afraid of toxic influence and the corrosive nature of Iranian influence in the country,” Shanzer said.
Foreign Minister Hussein told Reuters not to think that Iraq was the next Domino who fell.
IRI is a group of armed factions of Islamic resistance under the auspices of the Iranian “axis of resistance”. These groups are the hardest to manage the Iraq government and were responsible for the attack that killed three Members of US Services in Jordan In January 2024, Iri was aligned with Iran and was involved in armed operations against Israel and US coalition forces from October 7th.
Popular mobilization forces (PMF) also operate in Iraq. The PMF was formed in 2014 after the Iraqi Shiite priest, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged the Iraqis to rise and fight the Islamic State. Tehran sent IRGC advisers, weapons and other military support from the PMF to fight ISIS, according to the Defense Intelligence Service Agency.
The PMF is formally recognized as the official part of the Iraqi forces of state security and directly reported to the Prime Minister.
The Tugovci sing slogans against the US during the funeral of the Iranian top general, Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandas, Deputy Commander of the Iranian militia in Iraq known as the popular mobilization forces, at the Shrine in Karbala, Iraq, on Saturday, January 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
“Current discussions are revolted by how effectively manage the so -called Islamic resistance fractions, some of which received the prominent media from October 7th while performing armed operations under the labeling of Islamic resistance in Iraq,” Inna Rudolf, who studied PMF at King’s College London , he told Fox News Digital.
Many of these resistance fractions, Rudolf said, also registered brigades within a state-recognized Umbrella of the PMF.
“The issue of decisions makers remains how to neutralize these elements and to alleviate the risk of withdrawal of both the PMF and Iraqi state in a poorly tempered geopolitical escalation,” Rudolf said.
Rudolf pointed out that although Iranian Proxy were significantly weakened from October 7The pressure intensified in the light of reports suggesting that Israel could revenge on Iranian groups within Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani attends a ceremony in Baghdad in Iraq, January 9, 2024.
Many observers of the region think that Iraq’s attempt to draw in armed fractures at this point a sign of Iranian reduced position in the region.
“The fact that a large safety sector reform is being carried out at the moment with the popular mobilization forces, it is representative for the weakened role of Iran in the country and the imperative among more moderate forces, as well as the US, to use it and create a momentum,” said Caroline Rose, a senior analyst and head of the Vakuum of Strength program at the New Lines Institute, she told Fox News Digital.
The Iraq elections are scheduled for this fall, and Prime Minister Sudani is trying to negotiate an acceptable form of bilateral security cooperation with the US, including the status of US forces within the country. The US currently has about 2500 soldiers who serve in Iraq as part of Anti-Isis surgery inherent in decisive efforts.
The region observers agreed that if Iraq could not show their ability to restrain themselves in crash groups conducting armed operations against the prime minister, maintaining security with the United States, especially under President Donald Trump, it could be impossible.
