Tehran Seeks to Consolidate Power in Iraq in 2018

By Michael Knights

Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.  He has worked in every Iraqi province and most of the hundred districts, including all the Kurdish areas.

Iran’s principal regional nemesis was removed when Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown by the United States in 2003. The new Iraq quickly fell under the leadership of powerful Shia Islamist parties, most of whom had sheltered in Iran to avoid Saddam’s persecution. One example is Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Da’awa Party, which has produced the prime ministers that have led Iraq for twelve of the fourteen years since Saddam fell. Another major party was the Islamic Supreme Council for Iraq (ISCI), a bloc formed in Iran by the Iranian government during the Iran-Iraq War. Since ISCI and Da’awa were willing to work with the Americans, they gained advantages in the new political system, and combined with Iranian media support and political funding, they dominated the parliament, the cabinet, and provincial councils in the Shia governorates.

Some of the Shia Islamist parties were even closer to Iran. Hadi al-Ameri’s Badr Organization was built as a military force by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to fight against Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War. After 2003, Badr placed its fighters in the new Iraqi security forces (ISF), exploiting the U.S.-led coalition’s desperate need to rebuild the military.  As a result, hundreds of Iranian-trained intelligence operatives were emplaced at the heart of the new U.S.-built ISF in a process known as “dimaj” (amalgamation).

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