Trump pressures Iraq to curb Iran-linked militias and assert control

Donald Trump’s administration pressed Iraqi leaders to distance Baghdad from Iran and rein in militias that operated outside full government control, putting Iraq’s most basic security question back at the center of its politics.

The core of that dilemma was the Popular Mobilization Forces, a bloc of mostly Shiite paramilitary groups that formed in 2014 after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling Iraqis to fight ISIS. Iraq’s parliament later gave the PMF formal legal status in 2016, placing it inside the armed forces while preserving a structure that still left major factions with room to operate independently. Under that law, the PMF became an independent organization with corporate personality, part of the Iraqi armed forces, and reporting directly to the general commander of the armed forces.

The PMF has roughly 200,000 to 240,000 fighters, and the Iraqi government funds it at about $3 billion to $3.6 billion a year. The dispute also centered on budgets, command chains and who actually held power on the ground in Iraq.

Washington warned that any move to formalize or empower the PMF further could entrench Iranian influence in Iraq. Iraqi leaders pushed back, saying the question was one of sovereignty and that all weapons had to come under state authority. That clash landed in a system where several factions had already been accused of attacks on U.S. personnel and interests in Iraq and across the region, including groups such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat al-Nujaba.

The militias themselves were not uniform. Some Iran-backed factions signaled they might accept state control of their weapons and distance themselves from the PMF, while others stayed opposed or gave mixed signals.