Iraqi politicians are furious that Israel apparently struck munitions depots belonging to Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq last week. A statement released by the Iraqi Prime Minister’s office after a meeting with both President Barham Salih and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi declared, “All sides condemned this sinful aggression and the flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, and considered the attack on Brigade 45 of the PMF in Qaim in Anbar Province an assault on Iraq’s sovereignty.”
Certainly, the Pentagon seems to believe Israel’s actions are unhelpful. On Aug. 26, its spokesman released a statement declaring, “We support Iraqi sovereignty and have repeatedly spoken out against any potential actions by external actors inciting violence in Iraq. The government of Iraq has the right to control their own internal security and protect their democracy.”
Many U.S. national security professionals and those engaged in the Iraq issue are worried that the Israeli strike will feed the populism of Iraqi parliamentarians partial to Iran and lead to motions in parliament calling for the exit of U.S. forces still stationed in the country, never mind their mission set is to prevent a return of the Islamic State. The fact that President Trump earlier this year suggested utilizing U.S. forces to “watch” Iran only fueled the fire.
But there is a certain hypocrisy to the Iran interest lobby in Baghdad. Consider Iranian violations of Iraqi sovereignty, for example. On July 12, 2019, Tasnim News, an outlet close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported on the first use of Iran’s Mohajer-6 drone against targets inside Iraqi territory. “The IRGC Ground Forces’ UAV unit is one of the newly established units which has been able to perform well in the short time since its formation,” the IRGC bragged. Against this violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Baghdad’s Iran interest lobby was silent.
Pro-Iranian parliamentarians in Baghdad were also largely silent when militias allegedly taking direction from Iran used Iraqi soil to attack Saudi Arabia and also supposedly targeted the U.S. diplomatic presence. While Saudi Arabia did not react militarily, and while the U.S. State Department overreacted by closing its consulate in Basra, Iraqi politicians of all sects, ethnicities, and ideologies should understand how dangerous allowing Shi’ite militias to act unilaterally from Iraqi territory is. Not all Shi’ite militias are the same: most are loyal only to Baghdad, although perhaps 30% take direction from outside Iraq.
It is these militias which are the problem. Iraqis may criticize U.S. policy toward Iran, but should tolerate neither Washington nor Tehran making it an Iraqi fight. Perhaps certain militia leaders believe they can use Iraq as cover or maintain plausible deniability, but what they are doing is in effect usurping Iraqi sovereignty and democracy, and assuming authority which Iraqi law does not vest them. Bluntly, militias not acting under the authority and with the expressed permission of the Iraqi security establishment and the prime minister are attacking Iraqi sovereignty just as much as the Israeli pilots who bombed sites near Baghdad.
The Iraqi government is likely resilient enough to resist blunt Iranian demands to expel U.S. forces, but Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi is playing a very dangerous game. Symbolic action to take on Iranian-backed militias is easy, but his July executive order did little to tackle the substantive problems posed by groups violating Iraqi sovereignty or usurping its government’s constitutional authority. It did not, for example, stop the militias from individual recruitment and training. New Defense Minister Najah al-Shammari likewise appears more interested in shirking responsibility than using the power vested in his office and his legal authority to protect Iraq’s defense.
Populists among Iraq’s parliament can lambaste the United States and even demand America’s ouster, but they ignore that militias unchecked pose a far greater threat to Iraq’s future trajectory: The last half century of Middle Eastern history — Jordan in 1970, Lebanon in 1975, Algeria and Somalia in 1991, Iraqi Kurdistan in 1996, Gaza in 2006, and Syria and Yemen more recently — shows that when governments allow militias to act independently within their territory or celebrate militia actions while seeking plausible deniability for their actions, the end result is always the collapse of state security and a disaster for ordinary citizens.
Either the Iraqi government assumes control over and responsibility for the actions of all its armed groups, or Abdul-Mahdi’s legacy will be the leader whose laziness lost Iraq.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
