In his speech at a summit on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea late last month, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the Iraqi leadership to forge an alternative pathway for the country’s political system that he suggested would lead to “a stronger and more democratic sovereign Iraq that benefits its people and the region”.

Macron specifically targeted Iran, whose Shia allies have the upper hand in the new government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia Al-Sudani. “There is a way that is not that of a form of hegemony, imperialism, a model that would be dictated from outside,” Macron told the Baghdad II Summit held to shed light on Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Speaking at the opening session of the meeting, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi also blasted foreign interference in Iraq’s domestic affairs, which he said had “overburdened the Iraqis and [negatively] impacted all the peoples in the region”.

The summit followed a gathering in August 2021 in the Iraqi capital organised at Macron’s initiative and brought together regional powers to underscore their solidarity with Iraq and to help it rebuild after nearly two decades of war.

While underlining their commitment to stepping up efforts to transform Iraq into a stable and functioning nation, participants in the two rounds of the summit aimed at a much bigger objective: pulling Iraq out of Iran’s sphere of influence.

One approach to this goal has been to demonstrate greater support for former Iraqi prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who was swept into office in May 2020 on a wave of mass anti-corruption and anti-Iranian protests.

The Baghdad Summit was designed to allow Al-Kadhimi to present himself at home as a major player on the regional stage and provide him with valuable new opportunities to bolster his stature as a strong leader who can challenge Iran and its proxies in Iraq.

Alongside Al-Kadhimi, the other main aim of the summit was to embrace the rise of Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, whose bloc won a majority of 73 seats in Iraq’s last parliamentary elections and was slated to form a majority government in the face of the pro-Iran Shia blocs.

However, what was showcased by Macron as a masterstroke soon appeared to be wishful thinking as Al-Kadhimi proved to be too weak and untactful to deliver and Al-Sadr failed to form a government in the face of pushback from Iran and its allies.

Another shortcoming by those at the summit was the lack of a roadmap for a regional and international strategy to set the wheels of Iran’s containment in Iraq in motion.

It is not clear if Macron and his regional partners have worked out any specific plans to help decouple Iraq from Iran and if Al-Sudani is ready, willing, or capable of ending Iran’s malignant role in Iraq.

One key issue is how to make Al-Sudani implement agreements and understandings cut with Al-Kadhimi to revamp Iraq’s ties with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and a number of the Gulf countries in order to balance the influence of Iran in the country.

The deals on power, oil, trade, and investment are of enormous economic and geostrategic importance, and they would allow Iraq to reduce its energy and trade dependence on Iran and turn its ties with the Arab world into a concrete alliance.    

The strategy, which is believed to have EU backing, is to be integrated with the US “maximum pressure” policy on Iran and Washington’s confrontational posture aimed at weakening Iran’s influence in Iraq and empowering anti-Iran forces and US Iraqi allies.

US policymakers, who had showed a clear preference for Al-Kadhimi and had encouraged the US media to portray him as a strong nationalist leader, have remained tight-lipped about the prospects of Washington’s ties with Al-Sudani.

Top US officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk have been in contact with Al-Sudani to discuss US-Iraq ties.

US ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski, who has met with Al-Sudani several times since he took office in October, has been emphasising the partnership between the US and Iraq in addressing corruption, the climate crisis, and economic reforms.

Behind the scenes, however, Washington has stepped up the pressure on Baghdad in a bid to curtail Tehran’s influence in the country, including by blacklisting Iraqi government ministers and officials connected to pro-Iran militias that the US has designated as terrorist groups.

But most significantly, the US has moved to restrict the flow of dollars from Iraq to the Islamic Republic, which is under US sanctions, and it is closely monitoring transactions by Iraqi groups suspected of corruption and money laundering.

Under pressure from the US Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, the Iraqi Central Bank (ICB) has temporarily shut down several banks believed to have close links to Iran’s proxies in order to stop the funneling of billions of dollars to Iranian banks.

Reports abound that the State Department might have warned that the US could shut down Iraq’s access to the Central Bank’s account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if Al-Sudani does not move to stop the flow.

Many reports have attributed the recent drop in the value of the Iraqi dinar, which has sparked alarm about Iraq’s already shaky economy, to measures taken by the US authorities to tighten the flow of dollars to Iran.

Yet, other reports have suggested that the ICB’s acquisitions in US dollars are still being pumped into Iraqi markets and then channeled to Iran through exchange bureaus owned by pro-Iran groups and businessmen.

Though Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian participated in the two editions of the Baghdad Summit, Tehran was evidently uncomfortable with the development and has showed no sign of changing the dynamics of its engagement in Iraq.

Tehran has continued to make inroads in its troubled western neighbour while Iran’s proxies continue to gain ground in Iraq’s parliament, government, security forces, and the powerful Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF).

Under the new government, Iraq’s Shia Coordination Framework, which consists of Iran-backed groups, is enjoying enhanced political clout. Since Al-Sudani came to power, the Framework’s leaders have been playing a key role in steering national politics, and its factions have reinstated their members in key government and security posts.

Last month, the Framework succeeded in pushing Al-Sudani to form a trading company to be run by the PMF that will empower the Iran-backed paramilitary force economically.

The $70 million corporation, which is expected to copy the business activities of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is a sign that the PMF will be able to strengthen its ties with Iran and change bilateral relations in fundamental ways.

Iran has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the fall of the dictatorship of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003. Its influence extends to a dozen Shia political parties and Sunni and Kurdish groups that find ties with Iran crucial in securing a seat at the table in running the government and accessing national resources.

Given the growing political, economic, security, and cultural influence of Iran in Iraq since Al-Sudani’s government came to power, the question remains of how the partners in the Baghdad Summit will be able to achieve their ambitious goal of disengaging Iraq from its eastern neighbour.

Aside from the diplomatic flurry, Macron has failed to produce a clear, comprehensive, or functional strategy to confront Iran and win back Iraq. In his interview with the Annahar Al-Arabi outlet on 23 December, the French president alluded to a two-pronged agenda that involves “dialogue” with Iran and regional economic integration with Iraq.

Macron said an outline on how to implement the two ideas would be announced as soon as this month.

The idea of a regional platform to engage Iran on the region’s outstanding issues has been in circulation for years, but it has never got off the ground. Arab heavyweights have rejected the overture, maintaining that normal ties with Iran can come only after Iran stops meddling in the internal affairs of the Arab countries.

A critical step towards constructive engagement with the Arab world that would help Iraq gets back on its feet will depend largely on Al-Sudani and whether he has enough control over the pro-Iran groups in his government that are expected to block closer cooperation with the Arab countries.

Many chronic problems have been dogging Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003, but none have been more detrimental than Iran’s vast influence in the country. Tehran’s meddling has virtually turned Iraq into a client state, leading to persistent stagnation and suffering.

The only way out of Iraq’s malaise and to the survival of Iraq as a nation is to eradicate the rot at the heart of its political system and to stop Iran from undermining the foundations of the Iraqi state.

 

*A version of this article appears in print in the 5 January, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly