Al-Sudani bows to Iran's demands

The appointment of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as Iraq's prime minister satisfied Persian ambitions. The current head of government was the candidate proposed by the Coordination Framework, the coalition that brings together pro-Iranian Shia parties, bitter enemies of the Sadrist Movement led by the populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also Shia but of a sovereigntist bent, which was the most voted party in the last elections in October 2021.  

Al-Sudani, former Human Rights Minister and former associate of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, appeared in the running to become Prime Minister just a few weeks ago, amid the political crisis, with the aim of unblocking the legislative process following the mass exit of the 73 deputies of the Sadrist bloc from Parliament. In the end, after several violent clashes in the heart of Baghdad between sectarian militias, his candidacy went ahead thanks to the backing of the Kurdish and Sunni sectors.  

The new prime minister, who has been in office for barely a month, faces a range of crises that threaten Iraq's territorial integrity. The latest front is in Iraqi Kurdistan, an area in constant turmoil. Iran has launched a battery of air strikes on the semi-autonomous region because Iranian Kurdish armed groups such as the Democratic Party and the Komala Party, exiled after their demands for greater Kurdish autonomy in the framework of the 1979 Iranian Revolution were denied, have been operating there since the 1980s and 1990s.

The Revolutionary Guard has accused these organisations of smuggling arms across the border to opposition groups inside the country, without providing any evidence, and above all organising the mass protests that have put the Ayatollahs' regime on the ropes following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman of Kurdish origin, who was arrested by the Morality Police for wearing the wrong veil.  

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said that there were "76 terrorist bases" in Iraq allegedly involved in such activities, accusations that Kurdish armed groups flatly reject. Formations such as the nationalist Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) have claimed that Iran was using them "as a scapegoat". "All this is to divert the international community's attention from internal affairs and the situation in the country," said the organisation's spokesman, Khelil Nadri.  

Commander Ismail Ghaani, in charge of the Quds Forces, the elite branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in charge of operations abroad, threatened his Iraqi counterpart with an incursion into its territory to stop the alleged threat if the Baghdad government failed to act. According to a source quoted by the Financial Times, the warning should be taken seriously because, among other issues, Iran had built up troops on the border.

General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guard's ground forces, said the body had deployed armoured units and special forces in the west and northwest of the country as a security measure, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Al-Sudani denounced Iran's recent offensives in the semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq and described the actions as a "violation of Iraqi sovereignty", but his words did little to stop the hostilities. The prime minister, perceived as a profile close to Iran's positions, sent his top national security adviser - a leading member of the Badr Brigades, a militia created and led by Iranian officers during Saddam Hussein's era to promote the Islamic revolution in Iraq - to Tehran to calm the waters, without much success.  

On his first official visit as prime minister, Mustafa Kazemi's successor chose Iran. Al-Sudani, whose father and other members of his family were executed during Saddam's dictatorship for being members of the Shi'ite Dawa Islamic Party (DIP), visited Tehran on Tuesday to iron out differences between the parties and coordinate positions. He first held a meeting with President Ebrahim Raisi, with whom he appeared in the press room, and then had talks with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.   

Al-Sudani did not travel alone, but was accompanied by the foreign and oil ministers, Fuad Hussein and Hayyan Abdul Ghani. Also present are the national security adviser, Qassim al-Araji, and the director of the prime minister's office, his economic adviser and, finally, the director of the Iraqi Bank of Commerce. A line-up that reflects the agenda set for the two-day official visit.

In the few statements reported by the Iranian and Iraqi state news agencies, Raisi, who described al-Sudani's visit as a "turning point" in Iranian-Iraqi relations, stood out. From the Saadabad Palace in Tehran, where the meeting took place, Iraq's new prime minister pledged that Iran would not be attacked from its territory. Both sides also made it clear that their ties are based on "mutual respect and non-interference".  

But this last point is false. Iran has conditioned the political reality of neighbouring Iraq for decades through a large part of the Shia militias operating in the country's rural areas, from which they favour the local population, recruit fighters and spread pro-Islamic Republic of Iran propaganda. These militias, deeply rooted on the ground, are known as the Popular Mobilisation Units. The new al-Sudani government agreed to withdraw them with the Kurdish and Sunni sectors but has yet to deliver on its promise.  

"Although al-Sudani has given the impression that he plans to empower the Iraqi state, his actions have so far avoided antagonising the pro-Iranian Shia militias, whose very existence undermines the state itself," writes analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD). Kali Robinson recalls in her analysis for The Council of Foreign Relations that "more than a dozen Iraqi political parties have ties to Iran, which funds and trains paramilitary groups aligned with these parties".