Alwaght- In the past few days, the US government reported Trump sending a letter to Iran and setting a two-month deadline for Tehran to start the negotiations. Amid the reactions to the content of the letter, Iranian ambassador to Iraq revealed that the American President demanded the dissolution of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a voluntary force in Iraq formed in opposition to the ISIS terrorist group in 2014 following a fatwa by grand Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani of Iraq. This analysis sheds light on the motivation behind this US demand, the PMF role in neutralizing the US plots in Iraq and the region, and the possible ramifications of dissolution of this effective anti-terror force.
1. PMF role in repelling the US plots in Iraq
The push to dissolve this force from Iraq's political and military structures is as old as the age of this popular and socially deep-rooted military organization. So, it is crystal clear that, in the first place, the largely illogical and unjustified demand of Trump from Iran to dissolve a legitimate and powerful force with a firm social foundation bears proof to the distinguished role of the force as a part of the Axis of Resistance in neutralizing the evil American plans in Iraq and the region over the past decade. Actually, all the White House conspiracies against the force, from military attacks to economic sanctions to media propaganda, have met their failure and the US has reached a point of strategic frustration with the PMF, to an extent that it insists on shifting the blame and declining to accept the reality of failure of its interventionist policies in Iraq and to name it the proxy of Iran.
At its inception, the PMF managed to set a brilliant record in confronting the terrorist group and defeating the US project of creating instability in Iraq by increasing national synergy against the grand conspiracy of the emergence of the ISIS terrorist group. During his first term as president, when Trump was forced to secretly travel to visit the country's military base in Iraq, he considered it a sign of humiliation for the US, saying that spending over $7 billion since invasion of Iraq in 2003 has failed to secure the American interests.
The US initially took advantage of ISIS rise in Syria and Iraq to justify its military presence in these two countries, but the PMF played a key role in defeat of the terrorists, and in the next years after declaration of ISIS obliteration, it played as the backbone of Iraq's security thwarting separatist plots in Iraq and defending national sovereignty.
The defense and security empowerment of the PMF has called into question the legitimacy of the US and NATO occupational presence in Iraq, and calls for the expulsion of foreign forces based on a parliamentary resolution and public opinion have increased, especially in 2020 when Trump ordered assassination of two anti-terror commanders, General Qassam Soleimani of Iran and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis of Iraq.
This demand entered a new phase, especially after Gaza war and the full US support for the Israeli army’s aggression on the Palestinian enclave and committing heinous crimes against the Palestinians. In fact, the American forces in the region have effectively assumed the role of a defensive shield for Israel against the operations supporting the resistance groups, and military tension between the PMF and the Americans in Iraq has heightened. In response to the illegitimate American airstrikes, groups affiliated with the PMF repeatedly attacked US bases in Iraq, and therefore Trump considers these attacks a threat to the US military presence in the region and considers the dissolution of the voluntary force a way to reduce the risks. Also, the US, in its quest to improve and restore Israel’s desperate security situation in the region, does not want Iraq to act as a new front against the Israeli regime.
From another aspect, the US is eyeing shifts to the Iraqi political equations and is trying to push the Iraqi government to dependence on the West and weaken independent institutions like the PMF.
In the past three months, the US and the Israeli regime, in cooperation with Turkey and armed terrorist groups in Syria, have subjected Syria's to a new crisis, and one of the important strongholds of the Axis of Resistance against the Israeli occupation and support for Palestine has fallen to the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group. Certainly, given its relatively long land borders with this country, Iraq is exposed to a potential similar fate and to becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Even now, concerns about the spread of insecurity and terrorism in Syria and the revival of sleeper cells of ISIS terrorists have ignited worry and anxiety among Iraqis, and in these circumstances, it is quite clear that the attempt to disband the PMF is aimed at stripping Iraq of its military and defense capabilities and making the country militarily dependent on the US. Also, if the PMF is disbanded, pro-Western movements will gain more power in the country's politics. The PMF and its political allies such as the majority-holding Shiite Coordination Framework (SCF) are present in the Iraqi parliament and prevent the complete dominance of pro-Western movements. Disbanding the force means eliminating an important political competitor for the factions aligned with the US and Saudi Arabia.
2. Undermining the Axis of Resistance in Iraq and the region
Since the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the political and security balance system in the West Asian region has undergone major developments, such as the Islamic Awakening of 2011 and Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm in October 7, 2023, and competing forces are still trying to draw and adjust the new geometry based on their desired model. In this competition, the confrontation between Iran as the head of the Axis of Resistance and the US in Iraq has a decisive place.
The PMF, especially after its official formation in 2014 in response to the ISIS emergence, has become one of the crucial branches of the Resistance camp in the region. Therefore, its dissolution would mean impairing the Axis of Resistance and undoing Iran’s strategic depth in the region.
Meanwhile, it is important to note that by setting dissolution of the PMF as a precondition for negotiations, Trump thinks he can wrest a strategic concession from Iran. However, although many of the PMF factions like Kata'ib Hezbollah Iraq, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, and Harkat Al-Nujaba have close ties to Iran, Iranian and Iraqi officials have repeatedly asserted that these ties are within the framework and under the rules and formal political, military, and security relations between the two countries. Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that the claims made by the West about these forces being proxies to Tehran are baseless and that they enjoy complete independence in their general policy-making and political and military performance.
Can the US dissolve the PMF?
It is arduous to completely dissolve the PMF because it is a deep-rooted official institution in the country's politics and military structure and has a broad popular basis. Under Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, the PMF was formalized as a part of the regular military acting under the command of the prime minister as the commander-in-chief. Indeed its disbanding requires a prime minister's order and a parliamentary bill. This means that given the popularity and public legitimacy of the PMF and the power and influence of the pro-Resistance forces in the government and the parliament, such a bill is highly unlikely to see the light.
Additionally, it should not be forgotten that the PMF was formed with a fatwa of the Iraqi religious authority to push back terrorism, and as long as this authority has its firm advocacy for this force, efforts by the US and other enemies of the Axis of Resistance will go nowhere. In other words, as long as the regional tensions caused by the Israeli aggression on Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria continue, the religious authority will, as ever, remain an ensuring support to the Iraqi security and stability.
