Why Washington's efforts to weaken Iran's influence in Iraq may be doomed to fail

US Middle East envoy Tom Barrack met with Faiq Zaidan, president of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, in London this week. The meeting came five days after the two men met in Baghdad.

This was the third meeting between Barrack and Zaidan in the last month, with the first taking place in Baghdad on October 12.

In a post on X following the Tuesday meeting, Barrack wrote that “strong, independent judicial institutions and deeper cooperation between our legal systems are essential to building confidence, advancing the rule of law, and securing a more prosperous future.”

Concern for progress on the judicial front notwithstanding, three meetings in the course of a month between the US special envoy for Syria and Iraq and the head of Iraq’s judiciary seem a little excessive.

Barrack didn’t meet with Zaidan to discuss finer points of jurisprudence

In this case, it’s best to avoid the official appellations, which are deceptive. Zaidan is indeed a judge and holds a senior judicial position. But it may be assumed that Barrack didn’t meet with him to discuss finer points of jurisprudence.

Rather, the US envoy sought out Zaidan’s company on three occasions in the last month because Faiq Zaidan is a key player, and maybe the key player, in the pro-Iran structure which is the real wielder of power in Iraq.

The US administration is engaged in an effort to secure a situation in which, as the US special envoy put it, “militia influence has no place in Iraq’s institutions.” Ensuring this is vital, wrote Barrack, since “Iraq’s future belongs to its people, not armed factions operating outside the state.”

A casual observer might find it strange, or even contradictory, that the US appears to be seeking to partner with well-known instruments of Iranian power in Iraq to end the influence and power of pro-Iran armed factions in the country.

A casual observer would be right. Zaidan has been described as playing “the role once played by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces – running the political scene from behind the curtain.” Hoping to enlist such a figure in an effort to curb or reverse Iranian power in Iraq is an enterprise whose failure is guaranteed in advance. Zaidan (like Muhandis before him, who made no secret of the fact when I interviewed him in 2015) receives his orders from Iran.

Why then does the US appear to be attempting it? Backing one element of Iranian influence in Iraq against another is unlikely to end in an overall reduction of Tehran’s power in the country. But this may not be the intention.

The US seems to be looking for short-term quiet in return for a tacit acknowledgment of Iran’s ascendant position in Iraq. It is, hence, backing an element within the broader pro-Iran group in Iraq that appears prepared to indulge in minimal efforts to create the impression it is not working with or for Tehran – against another faction that declines even this level of obfuscation.

There is less to Iraq than meets the eye

THE DIVISIONS among Iran’s servants in Iraq are not entirely illusory. The faction that includes Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and also Deputy Prime Minister Laith al-Khazali, a senior official of the murderous Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, is engaged in a show of apparent cooperation with the US to avoid financial sanctions.

There is less to this than meets the eye. Zaidi pledged to disarm militias by September 30, 2026. This date has now been replaced by June 2027 as the time when Iran’s servants will divest themselves of their arms. Few believe anything of substance will happen then, either. Asaib Ahl al-Haq announced its intention to disarm in June. There are no signs that it has in fact disarmed.

But the illusion of compliance is useful. It prevents the Americans from bringing matters to a head. Zaidi’s and Zeidan’s meetings with Barrack are intended to grease the wheels of this process, keeping the Americans happy that something is happening.

This is going on even as Iraq continues to act as a destination for oil smuggled from Iran, which is then blended with Iraqi crude and sold as Iraqi, in contravention of the US blockade and to the considerable financial gain of all involved.

Other militias, notably the Kataib Hezbollah organization, appear to be embarked on a different path, in which even the appearance of disarming is scorned.

An unlicensed oil refinery maintained by this organization was recently revealed in an area it controls southwest of Baghdad called Jurf al-Sakhar. It may be assumed that at least some of the revenues from this refinery were making their way to the militia’s sponsors in Iran. The refinery used crude oil brought from breached federal government pipelines. Its existence was revealed in a leaked report by Iraqi federal intelligence.

Kataib Hezbollah appears to have responded to the revelation of the refinery by carrying out a drone attack on the Khor Mor gas field in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. The organization has not claimed responsibility for the strike, but less than 24 hours before it took place, and following the revelations regarding the refinery, Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, the KH security chief, issued a public statement warning against “opening the files of Khor Mor.”

It is possible that all this is part of an elaborate charade. But at this stage, it seems more likely that the rivalry and tactical differences between pro-Iran factions are genuine, reflecting different immediate preferences and probably rival economic interests.

In this regard, an Iraqi source informed The Jerusalem Post this week that Prime Minister Zaidi conducted a secret visit to Iran on November 6, to secure Iranian pressure on officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Oil who are blocking progress in preparations for the construction of the Basra-Banias oil pipeline, which would pipe Iraqi crude oil to the Syrian Mediterranean coast, enabling the bypassing of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran opposes the project for obvious reasons. The US strongly supports it. The ministry employs many individuals closely linked to Iran, who are evidently doing their best to slow down and sabotage progress.

Follow the money, as usual. Officials backing the pipeline stand to get rich from involvement with it (various Iraqis claim darkly that very senior US officials, too, stand to make a lot of money if the pipeline is laid). Those opposed to it make fortunes from involvement with the Iranians’ and the militias’ alternative methods.

But neither faction exists outside of the de facto Iran-centered power arrangement which currently controls Iraq. Their differences, such as they are, are tactical only. Whichever one gets their way, the Iranian-controlled deep state in Iraq will continue to dominate.

A decade ago, in the organization’s HQ in Baghdad, an officer of the (even now inexplicably undesignated) Badr Organization, among the most powerful of the Shia militias, expressed the prospect to me in plain terms: As you have the army and the Revolutionary Guards in Iran – so it will be in Iraq, he told me.

He was right. That describes perfectly the reality that has emerged in the subsequent decade. And as in Iran, so in Iraq, it is the Revolutionary Guards who are the senior partner. The mystery is why Western policy has not yet caught up with this reality.