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.
Iran believes that its proximity to Iraq and higher level of commitment will help it dominate the country, crowding out or neutralizing the influence of the U.S., European states, and moderate neighbors. U.S. policy makers are naturally suffering from “Iraq fatigue,” but know it is dangerous to ignore a country which, if neglected, could serve as a key component in Iran’s projection of regional power.
The challenge for U.S. policy makers is to disrupt Iran’s plans for Iraq, without getting dragged into a military confrontation. A successful U.S. Iraq policy therefore must be carefully calibrated and rely on carrots and sticks. Iraq’s military should be offered continued U.S. aerial, intelligence, and logistics support in its fight against ISIS – forms of support for which Iran cannot provide any battlefield alternative. The U.S. should also advance Iraq’s peaceful economic development, both through direct aid and by encouraging its allies to do so – free trade zones with Jordan and Kuwait, for example, could tilt Iraq’s economic orientation away from Iran and towards the free world.
Washington’s goal should be to disrupt Iran’s local proxies without driving a wedge between Iraq and the West. Fortunately, Iran has made this an easy task.
Iran’s influence in Iraq flows through a nexus of corrupt ties to a wide variety of local politicians and militia chieftains, some of them inside the political system and others outside of it. Far from representing a united front, Iran’s local allies in Iraq are divided by divergent ideological goals and by intense, long-standing personal rivalries. A divide-and-conquer strategy based on a close reading of these rivalries could wreak havoc with Iran’s plans for its neighbor.
Taking on all of Iran’s Iraqi proxies at once would be destabilizing to the Iraqi political system, and would play into Iran’s hands. But punishing a few of the worst Iranian-backed organizations and individuals for crimes committed in the service of Tehran could have an outsized impact.
Not every Shia militia in Iraq must be treated as an enemy. But U.S. sanctions should be applied to at least some of the groups or individuals who are involved in atrocities in Syria, in helping Iran evade sanctions, and in other destabilizing activities. Those Iraqi militias involved in repressing domestic opponents and in corrupt dealings with Iran should be named, shamed, and, where possible, face legal penalties for their crimes. Even if Shia militia leaders have no ties to the U.S., the U.S. can work with its allies to cancel their visas and target their financial assets in European or Arab states (such as via the UK’s new Unexplained Wealth Order procedures). Such measures would not have to be comprehensive to be effective. Even a handful of actions in the clearest cut and most serious cases would have a strong deterrent effect and could also influence the domestic debate within Iraq on the country’s relationship with Iran. The addition of Iraqi Hezbollah financier Shibl al-Zaydi to the U.S. sanctions list in November is a first step in this regard – but it is important that further steps be taken with an eye to their political impact on Iraq, not just as a way of increasing economic pressure on Iran.
For years, Iran has outmaneuvered the U.S. in Iraq by taking cynical advantage of Iraq’s underdevelopment and political dysfunction. While the U.S. took on the difficult task of supporting Iraq’s nascent state institutions, Iran built personal relationships with specific Iraqi politicians and militants – relationships often based on underhanded payments and corrupt financial practices. Iran was never picky about who it chose to partner with, and most of its proxies are venal, self-interested, and prone to internecine conflicts. Well-calculated pressure at the right points could give the U.S. a fair shot at unraveling Iran’s proxy network in Iraq, while minimizing the disruption to Iraq’s political system.
Of course, there is a risk that U.S. actions against Iran could provoke an Iranian reaction, perhaps even attacks on U.S. military forces or diplomatic missions. But more likely, Iran will restrain its forces as to do otherwise would mean taking on considerable risk without much reward. Aggressive actions against the U.S. presence in Iraq run the risk of interfering with Iran's critical efforts to seek a compromise with the European Union on sanctions issues. if Iran goes for broke and uses force to shut down U.S. assistance missions to Iraq, it could hardly be called the "winner": Iran would be left with a Donetsk Republic on the Tigris – poor, internationally isolated, and hardly a useful tool for furthering Iran’s international ambitions. Not to mention that establishing full hegemony over Iraq would seriously complicate Iran’s efforts to use it as an avenue to evade sanctions. All this is to say that the U.S. likely has space to push back in Iraq without inviting uncontrolled escalation.
The U.S. and its allies do not need to (and cannot) fix all of Iraq’s problems for it, nor do they need to combat every Iranian avenue of influence in the country. What it can and should do is show Iraq’s decision makers the risks associated with serving as an Iranian proxy. By checking Iran’s influence in Iraq, Washington could add enhance the effects of its sanctions strategy.
See also Cipher Brief Analysis: Iran in 2019: Cautiously Surviving...
