With U.S.-Iran tensions rising after the re-imposition of nuclear sanctions, neighboring Iraq will likely emerge as a critical battleground in the U.S.-Iran contest. As the U.S. and its allies have pulled back from Iraq over the past decade, Iran has upped its engagement with local proxies to gain an advantage there – but Iran’s entanglement in Iraq also creates vulnerabilities that the U.S. and its allies can exploit in the struggle to curb Iran’s disruptive role in the region.
Iraq is critical to the Islamic Republic’s global strategy. First, it serves as Iran’s political gateway to the Arab world, and secondly as a recruiting ground for militia fighters who can be deployed in Syria and perhaps elsewhere. Thirdly, Iran and Iraq have very strong economic ties, which makes Iraq a useful lifeline for evading U.S. sanctions. Fourthly, Iraq’s religious significance as a center of Shia scholarship and destination of Shia religious pilgrimages makes influence over Iraq a high priority for Iran’s Islamist regime. In light of those realities, there is little doubt that if Iran succeeds in further consolidating its control over Iraq than its regional and global positioning will improve accordingly.
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