Iran has used Iraq to launch attacks on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and has also targeted the vicinity of Emirati nuclear facilities. Iraq, as an Iranian front, is a growing danger, transforming into an international issue and signaling a new regional situation that will require concerted efforts to confront it. T\u00fcrkiye arrested and extradited the commander of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, Mohammed Baqer al-Saadi, who was transferred to a prison in New York, which prompted the Iraqi government to break its silence and distance itself from Iran’s actions on its soil, without naming Iran directly.<\/p>\n
\nThis places Baghdad squarely in the crisis and puts threatened regional states into confrontations with Iran’s Iraq. The crisis perimeter includes Gulf states, as well as Syria, Jordan, and Israel, all facing a new situation created by Iran, similar to what it did in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\nFrom a strategic perspective, the picture becomes increasingly clear: Tehran does not treat Iraqi militias as mere temporary pressure tools for this war, but as an integral part of its long-term security doctrine based on offensive depth beyond its borders.<\/p>\n
\nSince the Iran-Iraq War, Iran decided to shift the confrontation away from its own territory by establishing ideologically, financially, and militarily linked local forces, transforming them into advanced lines of attack and centers of political influence simultaneously.<\/p>\n
\nIran is also destroying everything Iraqis have built and are trying to build: civilian and service governing institutions, a private sector, and regional and international relations. This makes the Iraqi people, across all their components, natural allies against Iranian encroachment, rather than adversaries to be targeted with boycotts and sanctions.<\/p>\n
\nThe Iraqi situation presents a hybrid state, much like Lebanon, where militias attack and the government disavows. The danger of militias lies not only in their possession of weapons but in their transformation into a parallel state structure with financial resources, political influence, and partial legitimacy. Naturally, they have also gained the ability to manage or obstruct Iraqi sovereign decision-making.<\/p>\n
\nThe Iraq front has opened, with Iran activating its Iraqi militias to circumvent the truce. Washington responded with a two-pronged approach: first, pursuing their leaders who believe they are immune, and second, beginning to dry up their financial resources.<\/p>\n
\nMohammed Baqer al-Saadi, who was arrested, is one of Iraq’s most important leaders, accused of orchestrating cross-continental terrorist operations. He heads Iraq\u2019s Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iran’s models for regional penetration. It is a local armed force loyal to Tehran, similar to the Hezbollah model in Lebanon, but it took a shorter time to establish and is being government-funded.<\/p>\n
\nIranian penetration stood on the shoulders of the loose Iraqi \u201cinstitutional democratic\u201d system, which gave it the upper hand in decision-making.<\/p>\n
\nAnother aspect of this new development is that Tehran’s activation of its Iraqi militias during the truce suggests it is determined to open a military front against its hostile surroundings, even if a peace agreement is reached to end the war with the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tehran wants to return to the weapon of proxies, increasing the role of Iraq’s militias to compensate for its three losses: The Assad regime, the curtailment of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the collapse of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\nThe post-war phase is no less dangerous should US military operations cease, whether as a result of commitments from a potential agreement to end the war, or due to the US administration’s desire to reduce its military activity in the region if it achieves a solution for nuclear enrichment that does not include an agreement on proxy weapons.<\/p>\n
\nThe current war, Iran-America-Israel, has proven what was expected. Lebanese and Iraqi militias are part of Iran’s cross-border military system and deserve to be treated like nuclear enrichment.<\/p>\n
\nTehran has grown accustomed to circumventing direct understandings by escalating conflicts through proxy arenas, which makes the militia file an organic part of the regional security equation, not a separate issue.<\/p>\n