Iraq must not be a staging ground for war with Iran | Brookings

Iraq finds itself caught in the crossfire of Israeli and American strikes against Iran. Unlike the Arab Gulf states, Iraq is the target of attacks from both sides, straining its ability to stay neutral and resist growing pressures from pro-Iranian paramilitary groups following Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assassination. The longer this war continues and the more frequently Iraq is targeted, the greater the risk that Iraq will descend into chaos. Multiple armed groups within the country—including pro-Iranian Shia paramilitaries and Kurdish-Iranian opposition groups—can aggravate fault lines that might trigger civil conflict. Meanwhile, the regional war has disrupted oil exports and electricity imports, threatening to push an already strained population toward open unrest.

Since October 2023, Iraq has defied the odds. Despite extraordinary external pressures and deep state fragilities, the Iraqi government has kept the country out of regional wars. Iraq’s political and religious leaders, including the powerful Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, have committed to protecting Iraq’s hard-earned stability.

Iraq has long balanced between Washington and Tehran, but the coming weeks will test Iraq’s resolve and capability like never before. Failure risks igniting civil conflict—a devastating outcome for the United States, which has spent trillions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of troops over two decades to stabilize Iraq.

Falling victim to both sides

Iraq’s vulnerability is compounded by bad timing: the country is mid-transition, forming a new government while the old one operates in a weakened, interim capacity. A third of cabinet posts are now vacant, as their occupants have moved on to become members of the new parliament. As a result, important institutions like the Ministry of Defense are now led by the prime minister on an acting basis.

Despite these constraints, the Iraqi government has attempted to deal firmly with pro-Iranian armed factions, limiting their direct engagement in the conflict. Authorities have also acted quickly to prevent pro-Iranian protesters, many of whom are members of these armed groups, from entering the Green Zone and attacking the American embassy within it. Iraqis are not just reacting to attacks on Iran; they are responding to attacks on their own soil. The United States has struck several Popular Mobilization Forces bases in Iraq, killing at least four paramilitary members.

For its part, Iran has attacked the American presence in Iraqi Kurdistan, primarily targeting Erbil International Airport, the site of the last military base housing U.S. troops in Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan is a sensitive territory, as it is also home to many Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups. However, like Iraq’s Shia, it would be a mistake to treat the Kurds as a monolithic group, whether regionally or within Iraqi Kurdistan itself. Iranian Kurds may be anticipating regime change in Tehran, but Iraqi Kurds may not be willing to sacrifice the political gains that they’ve achieved since 1991. Their role in the Syrian context is telling: they helped mediate between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus but did not adopt the Syrian Kurdish cause as their own. Just last month in Dubai, the premier of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, declared neutrality and his intention to stay out of the American-Iranian conflict. This stance will likely hold, even under American pressure to use Iraqi Kurdistan as a launchpad for a Kurdish insurgency inside Iran.

Kurds, like many Iraqis, know that they are caught in a war they want no part in. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein—himself a Kurd—recently put it plainly: while Iraq is “not a party to the war … its geographic location makes it directly impacted by its repercussions and the associated military operations.”

Iraqi Shias and their complicated relations with Iran

Iraq’s Shia community—politicians, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens alike—has a complex relationship with Iran, one that defies the myth of the “Shia crescent.” Many Shia leaders met the news of Khamenei’s assassination with condolences and mourning, including the announcement of 3 days of public mourning. However, this was a political calculation meant to appease Iraq’s polarized Shia population, not a sincere expression of grief. For decades, Iraqi Shia have sharply disagreed over how to view the Islamic Republic: as an ally or a malign meddler in Iraqi affairs.

Iraqi public opinion polling reinforces this picture. Iraqis generally share similar negative sentiments toward Iran and the United States, viewing them both as foreign interveners. By issuing broad statements of mourning while refusing to engage militarily, the Iraqi government is attempting to placate both sides at once.

The pressure on Iraqi Shia leaders is perhaps best illustrated by the behavior of Muqtada al-Sadr—long seen as the most prominent check on Iranian influence among Iraq’s Shia. Al-Sadr was the first to release a condolence statement and announce three days of mourning for Khamenei, beating the Iraqi state to it. If al-Sadr is calibrating this carefully, the pressure on less independent figures is likely far greater.

Making sense of Sistani’s statement

Khamenei’s assassination has reshuffled the hierarchy of Shia religious authority worldwide, leaving Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf as its undisputed senior cleric. Unlike Khamenei, Sistani and Iraq’s Shia religious authorities do not subscribe to the theocratic political doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih—the principle that clerics should directly govern the state—that their clerical counterparts in Iran do. Sistani’s reaction to Khamenei’s assassination was measured: he released a short statement of condolence, recognizing Khamenei as a respected religious scholar and political leader while urging the Iranian people to maintain unity. He followed this with a longer statement condemning the aggression against Iran and calling on the international community to pursue a peaceful and just resolution to Iran’s nuclear program.

Sistani’s restrained tone has unsettled parts of the broader Shia community, with some interpreting it as abandonment. But Sistani’s response should surprise no one, as the Iraqi Shia religious establishment has historically prioritized stability. Moreover, Sistani’s statements have always reflected his political realism—he works within the framework of nation-states and engages international actors where he believes they can make a difference. Sistani’s statements are a stabilizing force, effectively delegitimizing anyone or any group seeking to invoke religion to incite retaliatory violence.

The value of Iraqi stability

Maintaining Iraqi stability is not a costly endeavor for the United States, and Washington will find ample Iraqi political and religious leaders ready to partner on this goal. Last month, the United States worked directly with Iraqi authorities to transfer over 5,000 ISIS detainees (most of whom are not Iraqi) from eastern Syria to Iraq for prosecution and potential repatriation. This transfer succeeded because Iraq was both stable and a reliable partner in the war against ISIS. The United States must not take that stability for granted. The United States should avoid preemptively striking low-level targets in Iraq that would agitate existing fault lines and make it more difficult for political and religious leaders to maintain order and neutrality.