The 2003 Iraqi war resulted in a strategic shift in the relationship between Baghdad and Tehran by turning Iraq into a vassal state of Iran. Iran’s long-term strategy has been to export its Islamic revolution to transform enemies across the Middle East. The post-war security vacuum in Iraq facilitated this tactic, essentially a creeping invasion of Iraq in a gradual, sophisticated manner. Iran’s strategy goes beyond simply sponsoring militias; rather, it also encompasses religious, economic, ideological, and political dimensions.
Religiously, Iran has imposed its own brand of Shi`ism on Iraqi Shi`a. While friendly to Baghdad, Tehran also sparked socio-economic problems by sporadically cutting gas and water supplies to its neighbor. Politically, Iran extended its grip on the Iraqi government to such an extent that it became the hidden decision maker behind Iraq’s internal and external policies. In this sense, Iraq is a case study to gauge Iran’s expansionist policies elsewhere.
Iraq is a case study to gauge Iran’s expansionist policies elsewhere.
Certainly, Iran’s most effective tool to infiltrate Iraq has been militias, like the Badr Corps it began to establish 1980s and which mushroomed after 2003. By 2016, there were over a 100 militias, all of which pay allegiance to Iran and act outside the Iraqi government’s control. As the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority established a new Iraqi army, these militias became competitors. An Iraqi journalist explained, “These armed factions are, in fact, the ones who lead Iraq nowadays. They are the decision makers and those who lead Iraq’s politics and control it militarily and economically. That is why one can call them Iraq’s de facto government.”
Iran also expanded its control by establishing 151 military bases along the common border with Iraq.
Iran has used its proxies to destabilize the Iraqi government at pivotal points, as the tip of the spear in efforts to drive out U.S.-led coalition forces, and as nodes in a broader effort to support other foreign ventures in Syria and, more recently, Yemen. Iraqi proxy attacks on Israel are the latest revelation of this strategy. Thus, “the Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an umbrella organization created after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, claimed 170 attacks on Israeli targets.
Consider how successful Iran’s strategy has become: Iraqis traditionally have been more apprehensive of Iran than of Israel or the United States. General Mizher Rashid al-Tarfa al-Ubaydi, who had served under Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime, for example, exemplifies the depth of these groups’ enmity towards Iran. He recalled, “If you ask me today whether I prefer relations with an Islamic Iran or Israel, I would choose Israel, because I do not believe Israel has ambitions outside its own borders. There is no Israeli threat in the Middle East. The threat comes from Iran.” In the early years of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the regime vowed to destroy Israel and export its revolution to Iraq. Iran did manage to achieve the latter goal.
Iraq participated in all the wars against the Jewish state; it never signed a ceasefire agreement with Israel and, in 1991, became the first country to attack Israel with missiles. That Iran and Iraq today unite in their goal to destroy Israel shows just how far Iran has transformed its neighbor.
