USA, Iran and military forces operating in Iraq. Review of the situation, trends and opportunities
On the night of February 14, several explosions occurred on the main gas pipeline of Iran (southwest Iran, Cheharmehal and Bakhtiaria provinces) near the city of Boruzhen. This is a branch that carries natural gas from the South Pars field to the north and to the Tehran region. Judging by the nature of the damage, it was clear that this was not a “technical accident,” but another act of sabotage at an Iranian infrastructure facility, which was announced the next day by the relevant Iranian department that manages the gas transportation network.
Such sabotage by “well-wishers” is not uncommon for Iran, but mutual “gestures of friendship” are just as regularly demonstrated by forces that are one way or another close to Iran. Attacks in the Red Sea and on American bases in Iraq and Syria do not stop. Three months of missile attacks on American bases and drones More than a hundred have already been applied.
The United States launched a test balloon in Iraq with reports that Washington is thinking about withdrawing the remnants of the American military contingent. The messages were intended to support the current administration in Baghdad, which is under severe public pressure, and to test the waters in the region as a whole.
For example, it was the American media that immediately began to speculate that, without bases in Iraq, it would be very difficult to supply troops in Syria. In fact, they are supplied from Turkey and Jordan. But the signals were sent, responses and reactions were collected and processed.
When viewed from the outside, one gets the strong impression that Iraq is “pro-Iranian,” and the US literally has the ground burning under its feet there. This is partly true; the US military does not feel very comfortable there. But this is not a crisis yet, and for quite a long time Washington has been able to somehow play on the contradictions in the region.
In this regard, it would be useful to look at who all these “good people” are who today represent the so-called. "paramilitary forces" of Iraq. Who stands for whom, what do regional players rely on, how these forces can work depending on different conditions, and what useful things can be brought out of this for ourselves.
This is also important because sooner or later, Russia will be forced, for objective reasons, to closely cooperate with Iraq. This is due both to the development of ties with Iran and to the determination of the Iraqi elite to develop their oil sector through the diversification of partners (just the other day we were invited to enter into the development of one of the large oil clusters). Projects for the development of port infrastructure and logistics from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea also have great prospects.
The armed forces in Iraq are represented by four forces.
Firstly, these are state contingents of central subordination: the army and the police, secondly, these are the so-called “people’s militia” or people’s militia units, the well-known “Hashd Shaabi” (actually, literally, the people’s militia), thirdly, tribal and local militias; fourthly, forces officially associated with the Kurdish state autonomy - the Peshmerga.
Army units under central command number 180 thousand people. They are inferior in total numbers to other formations, but have one of the main advantages of the official army - heavy equipment, full supplies and arsenals.
With the people's militia, everything is much more interesting and confusing.
The official name of the Hashd Shaabi is the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces or PMF. The PMF officially also includes tribal and local formations, but in essence these forces work separately from each other, aligned with specific interests.
The total number of Hashd units itself ranges from 165 thousand people. They are administratively organized into 56 brigades, the number of which can vary from 300 thousand to 2,5 million people. All of them are distributed across the central and southern provinces of the country, but the main concentration is the Baghdad region and the province. Nineveh. Three brigades are Sunni, the rest are Shiite, including Shiite Kurds.
Three more brigades, formally related to the Hashd, were formed on the basis of large Sunni Arab tribes (Jiburi, Jaber, Shammar). The other four brigades, which have very large contingents totaling up to 30 thousand people, are formed from Iraqi Turkomans, who are represented in large numbers in such an important region in terms of oil supplies as the city of Kirkuk and the area around it.
One brigade and two regiments numbering up to 3 thousand people are formed from representatives of the Yazidis and control their ethnic region with complexes of Yazidi shrines (Yezidkhan - Sinjar).
PMF are not, as one might think from reading numerous reports in the media, unofficial and informal associations. They have official status and official funding channels, which are understandably the subject of political struggle.
They have long been no longer advantageous in terms of money, but they give status. That is why it is so important that attacks on American bases, which have happened before, are now carried out under the flags of specific brigades. Previously, all this was presented as a “legacy of a dark time” and the ugliness of the marginalized, and perhaps even of al-Qaeda cells in general (banned in the Russian Federation). And today these attacks are almost part of what, even on formal grounds, can be attributed to the state.
PMF were formed in the wake of opposition to the advance of ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation), which was rushing not so much to Baghdad, but to the areas of Kirkuk, Tuz-Khurmatu (oil) and Sinjar (logistics to northern Syria and Turkey). Baghdad here acted more as a political symbol and an area where large arsenals were concentrated. However, ISIS managed to take a significant part of them from large bases around Mosul and in the province. Anbar.
In fact, everyone who was in one way or another against ISIS in Iraq joined the PMF, and there were a lot of such groups. These are not only Shiites or Yazidis, the latter generally came under the most brutal skating rink from ISIS, but also large Arab Sunni tribal confederations that were not going to share either income or political influence with ISIS.
Arab tribal confederations are generally scattered in sort of “spots” throughout the Middle East. The incorporation of Arabs in the Syrian Trans-Euphrates region was carried out by ISIS often in an openly barbaric manner, and not all of their relatives in Iraq wanted to feel “brotherly ties” from ISIS.
A very motley system had developed, which had to be somehow administered, and in order to do this, it was necessary to somehow maintain it.
And the greatest opportunities here belonged to groups focused on the government and government funds of Prime Ministers N. al-Maliki, H. al-Abadi, tribal confederations, Turkomans and Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan. N. al-Maliki played together with Iran and in conditions when half of the country was de facto not functioning.
Iranian trade opportunities largely ensured the maintenance of at least some standard of living for the population. Kurdish Sulaymaniyah also traded with Iran, Erbil with Turkey. The official army of Iraq was largely forced to support the US and the EU. But it was trade that allowed Tehran to build channels to pump the dollar mass into the Iranian economy, and all these channels work effectively today.
As a result, what could be called a “pro-American Baghdad” (although how pro-American it is under al-Maliki) still had an army, and the Iranians increased their influence in the militia brigades manifold, and the more official Baghdad tried to reduce funding, the more this influence increased.
From 2015 to the present, Iran has almost openly recruited volunteers from Iraq to operate in Syria. Some of them settled in Syria permanently, but some returned and formed separate units directly and indirectly connected with the Lebanese Hezbollah and the IRGC. This includes Iraqi Hezbollah and the so-called. Said al-Shuhada brigade.
These are the most militant units from Iraq, which are constantly on the Syrian-Iraqi border and, if necessary, take responsibility for carrying out military actions. They were also noted in Yemen during the Houthi fighting against the coalition. If necessary, they take part of the US strikes “on themselves.”
Who lost here?
Firstly, the Yezidi Kurds, whom traditionally no one cared about, and secondly, the odious political figure M. al-Sadr. Perhaps some of the readers remember that during the full-fledged US occupation in Iraq, the so-called "Army of the Mahdi" It was relatively small in number (up to 3 thousand people), but a very combative unit of al-Sadr, which caused the United States a lot of trouble. Al-Qaeda led by A. al-Zawahiri and later headed by A. al-Zarqawi was in first place for the United States; supporters of M. al-Sadr were in second place.
ISIS has essentially shuffled the entire regional power map. Those who somehow sympathized with al-Qaeda or were part of its “clientella” opposed ISIS. ISIS and al-Qaeda are incompatible projects neither from the point of view of theoretical theology nor from the point of view of a political program.
Simply put, these are enemies. As a result, the emergence of ISIS, the economic situation, the position of official Baghdad and partly the United States itself pushed into the PMF all, figuratively speaking, “passionarity”, on which both the Mahdists of M. al-Sadr and al-Qaeda cells lived for a long time. .
As WikiLeaks documents show, during the Syrian crisis, Al-Qaeda received many offers from the CIA and the Clinton clan to “work in Syria,” which was done - the Syrian direction promised more profit to the jihadists at that time.
What did al-Sadr do? He went into politics, quite, it would seem, logically believing that, having gained control in the center, he would be able to control the situation on the ground through the army and the budget.
The result was a rather interesting construction, where a representative of one of the leading political forces, who has the support of the Iraqi Shiite theological corps, the Grand Ayatollah of Iraq A. Sistani, popular support in terms of slogans of anti-Americanism, national revival, etc., on that very land had three, maximum four, brigades within the same PMF.
At the same time, the official armed forces, for obvious reasons, did not obey him, being completely dependent on the center, which for a long time was still more pro-Iranian at its core and at the same time relied on American funding.
Naturally, disparate PMF brigades were coordinated and united into a kind of blocs, small ones around larger ones (Badr, then the Fatah political alliance), large ones close to the central government (Nasr), M. also tried to create his own bloc. al-Sadr (“Al-Sairun”), but the opportunities were not equal. But initially, many PMF leaders, as representatives of Badr Fatah, were initially in positions close to al-Sadr or directly collaborated with him.
K. Soleimani several times suggested that al-Sadr somehow reconsider his approaches, quite reasonably pointing out that for all his popularity, from the point of view of economics and strength, he (Suleimani) already has more influence than the Sadrists. But M. al-Sadr was always extremely firm in his ideas and only during the last political crisis in Iraq, seeing a similar situation, he decided to temporarily withdraw from direct political activity. This can be understood - al-Sadr had to rethink everything and develop a new strategy.
It is very clear here that the alignment of public policy at a particular moment in time does not always directly depend on the alignment in the economy and the balance of forces on earth. Politics can overtake the situation or lag behind, which sometimes creates illusions for an outside observer. However, sooner or later the trends converge here and there.
A separate role in this policy belongs to the Turkomans, groups that are ethnically close to the Turks and make up a significant part of Iraqi society (up to 2 million people), a significant number of which are concentrated around the Kirkuk oil basin.
Namely, it is still the main one in terms of volumes of Iraqi oil production. Ankara has significant influence over these groups and their elites. They, in turn, influence the distribution of oil revenues and the economy of Kurdish Sulaymaniyah.
Iraqi Kurdistan, which quite officially exists de facto in confederal status, has also been living according to its program for many years. Their number is up to 70 thousand people, with the possibility of doubling through the militia, they also incorporated the forces of the Syrian Kurds (about 10 thousand people), who belonged to political parties that were simultaneously opposed to B. Assad and the anarchic pro-American regime in northern Syria associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
The Peshmerga have separate subordination to the government in Erbil, separate supplies and training, which is carried out by the Americans and even the Israelis.
The current situation looks ironic for the United States. It turns out that they defeated Saddam, they defeated ISIS (at least in Iraq), they defeated al-Qaeda (almost in Iraq), they even formally defeated the Mahdi Army, even al-Sadr eventually retreated (for a while) to shadow. But all the potential forces that could work for these trends are now either working for themselves or for the interests of Iran. The official forces depend on the government.
So it turns out that the most logical and adequate option for the United States would be to have some political force in Baghdad that would balance Iran “from above,” relying on the financial basis and US projects in the region.
Military bases here turn out to be unnecessary, but economic programs and projects are just vital. If the United States had another “chief specialist in the region”, and not the odious and permanent, albeit in different guises, B. McGurk, it is possible that they would begin moving bases partially to Iraqi Kurdistan, but this decision is secondary to the need to formulate programs economic loyalty to the central government.
And Washington cannot get away with half measures here - we need separate programs for large tribes (this is the development of oil on their territories), programs for Turkomans and programs for the center. Only in this way can the United States mathematically balance Iranian influence, which they themselves actually financed.
Has Washington done anything in this regard? Yes, it was done. On the one hand, they took control of dollar cash in Lebanon and Iraq, on the other, for a whole year, despite the political personalities in Baghdad who were not the most popular in the United States, they brought Iraq into programs related to the concept of the Indo-Abrahamic bloc. These were mainly logistics projects.
The events of October 7 put all this on pause. Delivered for the United States, but not for Tehran, which is pulling logistics towards Iraq and is going to build it further to the west.
The American bases in Iraq themselves have rather a political weight, and they are also a kind of centers for servicing American equipment, which is widely represented in Iraq. But it is possible to maintain the equipment in another way, and if it were not for the Hamas attack on October 7, the United States could well have tied the financial strings in the hands of the governments in Baghdad and Beirut and gracefully left the military bases of Iraq before the election of a new president.
But the United States represents that unique case when the strongest intellectual machine draws plans “God - level 180”, moreover, even implements them, but at the same time not a single similar project for the political, military and economic “terraforming” of regions was brought to the final capable. It was possible to launch projects, but not to administer and manage them. Of course, a colossal amount of experience has been gained there, but the final result is significant.
So here, too, it would seem that the concept of the “Abraham Accords” and later the rather interesting and promising project of the “Indo-Abrahamic bloc” allowed the United States to painlessly leave Iraq, maintain influence, and bind the region, putting a good barrier to Iranian influence.
After October 7, leaving Iraq is already fraught with serious political problems. After all, they also wanted to leave Afghanistan under the new cadre of Democrats in the White House, but it turned out “somehow not very well.” But in Afghanistan, the United States retained strong financial levers, and in the case of Iraq, these levers are half-hearted - they have their own trade, separate incomes and integration into the region as a whole.
Taking control of this financial system is an extremely non-trivial task, requiring the consolidation of loyal players, and where is loyalty if Israel is going to bomb Rafah, and J. Biden is engaged in seances in public.
In this regard, we must pay very close attention to the fact that Baghdad officially invited the state-owned Gazprom to participate in the development of fields in Nasiriya, as well as in projects to modernize the port of Faw. But these are only large projects that are rumored, in addition to developments in the Iraqi province. Vasit and Lukoil assets. Even before 2022, Russian companies were working closely in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the problems that arose there were more tied to relations with Baghdad.
There is a lot that can be achieved here while the US is floating around with ideas of investing a lot of money in the Indo-Abrahamic bloc, linking India and the Middle East, but at the same time getting bogged down in the Gaza Strip. The United States will not build this block without Iraq, but while they are busy in other areas, this brick can be taken for their own construction, and not for the American one.
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