Iran International
Iran-backed militias in Iraq are looking to consolidate the grip they won by force of arms on the fragile country's politics with gains in parliamentary elections next month, experts told Eye for Iran podcast.
After a series of military and diplomatic setbacks, Tehran may hope their allies next door can preserve its influence via the ballotbox and protect a decades-old Iranian political investment in its neighbor.
Confident that US attacks "obliterated" Iranian nuclear sites in June amidst an Israeli military campaign, US President Donald Trump may be ignoring the potential threat Iran poses in Iraq according to historian Dr Shahram Kholdi.
“Iraq may become, in a very odd way, the Achilles heel of the Trump administration,” he told Eye for Iran.
Kholdi warned Tehran’s reconfigured influence could quietly undermine US gains against Iran in the region, adding that steering its militias into politics risks “recreating the Islamic Republic light version in Iraq, 2.0, that operates through bureaucracy rather than arms.”
The shift comes as Washington issues one of its strongest warnings yet, saying it will not recognize Iraq’s next government if any ministries are handed to armed factions linked to the Islamic Republic, a source in Iraq’s Kurdistan region told Iran International on Friday.
In a recent call with Iraq’s defense minister reported by Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth cautioned any interference by armed factions to unspecified future US military operations would provoke a sharp American response.
The minister, according to the report, described it as “a final notice,” reflecting US concern that Iran’s allies could use Iraq’s elections to entrench themselves in state institutions.
For Tehran, encouraging its proxies to enter politics provides a way to adapt without relinquishing its arms.
The Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella of Shi'ite militias funded through Iraq’s state budget, command vast patronage networks that already blur the line between governance and coercion. Bringing those networks formally into Iraq’s political system could allow Iran to project stability while maintaining influence behind the scenes.
“Iran has been severely weakened in the wake of the 12-day war,” said Jay Solomon, a journalist and author of The Iran Wars.
“What we see is an effort to maintain their proxies and stay below the radar but rebuild.” The approach, described by Solomon, reflects a shift from confrontation to consolidation, using political channels to preserve influence while avoiding direct conflict with the United States.
That calculation, according to Alex Vatanka, Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, shows how Iran’s leadership has learned to work within new limits.
“They want to rebuild as much as they can within limits. They probably have a much better sense of their limitations today than they did before this summer. But again, they do not want to have that open fight, certainly not on Iraqi soil.”
Two decades after the US invasion of Iraq, Washington faces a familiar dilemma: whether to tolerate a fragile partner shaped by Tehran’s influence or confront a more sophisticated phase of Iranian power consolidation.
Iran’s recalibration in Iraq, analysts on Eye for Iran said, is less a retreat than a pause for recovery, a reminder that even under pressure its power lies not in confrontation but in adaptation.
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