Battleground Iraq: The Power of Iran’s Coalition Rests on Its Influence in Iraq

Battleground Iraq: The Power of Iran’s Coalition Rests on Its Influence in Iraq
Without Iraq, Iran is effectively isolated, its population and even its military advantages largely scratched

by Andrew Peek

The end of the War on Terror, as suggested by the near-simultaneous resignations of ISIS coordinators at the State Department and Defense Department, is something of the end of an era. For nearly two decades the United States has been at war with various shades of Sunni militants from Al Qaeda to the Afghan Taliban. During most of this time the heart of the fight, per the Bush administration, was in Iraq, and particularly the sprawling, 104-acre U.S. Embassy compound that served as the political face of an occupying army. With that army gone, it is no less critical.
The main American challenge in the Middle East for the foreseeable future will be, as it was under the Trump administration, stabilizing the Gulf States and their allies against Iranian power which in a vacuum would overwhelm them and allow Iran to dominate the Persian Gulf. The basic strategic problem is that Iran and its allies have become stronger than their primarily Sunni Arab opponents, thanks to a sequence of geopolitical events beginning with the fall of the Taliban. They have more people, more effective combat power, and greater deterrence. The unprecedented introduction of Russian combat power in the region on the side of Iran only made them more formidable. Left alone, this amalgamation of states could gradually induce the Gulf States and particularly Saudi Arabia to quietly accommodate Iranian wishes: in a worst-case scenario, permitting it to dominate the Persian Gulf and thus the price of oil, making Iran a great power.

The power of Iran’s coalition rests on its influence in Iraq. Without Iraq, Iran is effectively isolated, its population and even its military advantages largely scratched. With an allied Iraq, it far outclasses its regional opponents. Critically for the United States, it does not yet have full control of Iraq. It has tactical and operational control of certain outcomes: for example, trafficking missiles through the eastern border westwards towards Syria, and the ability to attack U.S. facilities. The Iraqi political class is also conscious of and reacts to perceived Iranian threats. But at the strategic level, Iran has wanted the United States and its forces out of Iraq for a decade and a half and has not gotten it, militia groups and missiles be damned

Iraq is thus the main battleground for Iranian political influence. It is contested in a way that Lebanon with Hezbollah is not. It is the only place where the United States is politically on offense against Iranian power, with few advantages, and it is hard. Counter-Iran policy, for the most part, is not hard. Everyone likes announcing new sanctions on Iran. Everyone likes condemning whatever terrible thing the Islamic Republic is doing and conferring with allied monarchs in luxury. But far fewer people actually want to get into the political weeds and fight out America’s interests in the Iraqi parliament: finessing, cajoling, and occasionally threatening political actors, often walking out of a meeting as the Iranians are walking in

The transfer of mission from counter-Sunni, basically, to counter-Iran in the U.S. government has had a significant impact on the type of military actions and diplomacy that is practiced, making the Embassy even more critical. There is less need for diplomats to travel into the hinterlands to meet village elders. That has been replaced in Iraq and other Shia areas by engaging with politicians who are constantly assessing the costs and benefits of siding with the Iranians versus siding with America. Major Shia politicians may not love the Iranians but they perceive the Iranians provide the certainty of a tactical payoff. They, or their proxies, will bribe you or kill you. America’s tools are less acute and thus its payoffs far less certain, even if, ceteris parabis, the ministers of parliament from Diyala might prefer us at the end of the day