When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit in 2019, he carried a message: The Iraqi government must restrain Iran-aligned armed factions. The visit came after the territorial defeat of Islamic State, at a time when these groups were transforming their battlefield legitimacy into political, security, and institutional influence.
The factions expanded their presence in parliament, embedded themselves within security structures, and leveraged the legal framework of the Popular Mobilization Forces to position themselves inside the state. This shift gave them capacity to influence from within institutions while maintaining the ability to act outside their constraints.
Nearly seven years later, the same American message has resurfaced. In a recent call with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Baghdad to take concrete measures to halt factional attacks.
Washington addresses a state presumed to monopolize decision-making, while in practice these groups operate both within and alongside state institutions.
The call followed strikes targeting the U.S. embassy and American interests in Baghdad, after these groups entered the confrontation with Iran. The repetition of this message highlights a flaw in U.S. policy. Washington continues to ask Baghdad to control the factions but it does not fully acknowledge the nature of the environment it faces.
Washington addresses a state presumed to monopolize decision-making, while in practice these groups operate both within and alongside state institutions. They influence decisions through formal legitimacy without being fully subject to government authority. This contradiction reflects not only miscalculation, but also hesitation to recognize the transformation of power in Iraq, where authority is distributed across overlapping centers.
During the current regional confrontation, this reality has expanded. Iran uses Iraq as an operational space in its conflict with the United States. It includes the presence of Qods Force personnel in Baghdad and the establishment of an operations center to coordinate a network operating under political and security cover across Iraq, Syria, and beyond.
This dynamic has also extended into the security domain itself. Strikes have targeted Iraqi intelligence structures and military sites coordinating with U.S. forces under existing security agreements.
Militia efforts to sever operational and intelligence links between Iraqi institutions and Washington have reduced coordination on the ground, contributing to the withdrawal of liaison officers from the Joint Operations Command and a diminished NATO presence. The objective does not limit itself to targeting U.S. assets but extends to reshaping Iraq’s external security relationships and allowing pro-Iranian factions a veto over cooperation with Washington.
These trends point to potential escalation. Reporting suggests that increased pressure to disarm or dismantle these factions could push them toward seeking direct control of the state by force.
This trajectory builds on the gray zone that U.S. policy has helped sustain: These groups have evolved from parallel actors into an advanced extension of Iran’s security architecture inside Iraq. In this context, a shift from influence over decision-making to control is not a sudden rupture but a plausible outcome of years of strategic ambiguity.
Rather than weakening the Iran-aligned factions, U.S. strategy has reinforced the environment in which militias expand.
At its core, this situation reflects a structural weakness in U.S. policy. Washington has not resolved a fundamental question: Is Iraq a sovereign state capable of monopolizing force, or a hybrid system that shares authority with armed non-state actors? U.S. policy neither shapes Iraqi policy nor restores state control but instead operates within an intermediate space without strategic clarity.
As a result, the United States has adopted, at best, selective containment: limited use of force to manage escalation, combined with continued diplomatic engagement with a government that does not exercise full control over its own security. This approach manages symptoms rather than causes.
Rather than weakening the Iran-aligned factions, U.S. strategy has reinforced the environment in which militias expand. The absence of a redefinition of the relationship between the state and these groups has preserved the gray zone, allowing them to operate from within formal institutions while maintaining operational autonomy. Over time, this duality has become embedded in the structure of governance itself, making any attempt to reverse it difficult.
The result is not a stronger Iraqi state or decisive U.S. deterrence, but a sustained intermediate condition in which factional influence grows. In such an environment, Iran does not need direct, overt control. It is sufficient that Iraq cannot make any decision without its influence, and that institutions operate within boundaries aligned with its strategic interests while maintaining a framework that preserves external engagement.
Under this pattern—repeated warnings, repeated strikes, and repeated demands—the central question is no longer whether Baghdad can control the factions, but a more fundamental one: When will Washington recognize that its old playbook cannot manage Iraq?
