Iraq, the Worried Neighbor
Iraq, the Worried Neighbor
With Trump’s re-election as the President of the United States, Iraq finds itself once again in a critical position.
During Donald Trump’s first term, Iraq turned into a battleground for a power struggle between Tehran and Washington.
Trump’s administration’s exit from the nuclear deal and the intensification of sanctions against Iran led Tehran to use its tools to exert pressure on America in the region more than ever.
In 2019, confrontations between Iran-backed groups in Iraq and American forces in the country reached their peak.
The siege of the American embassy and the infliction of casualties on American military and contractors in Iraq ultimately led to the U.S. operation to assassinate Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport. In response, Iran launched a missile attack on the Ain al-Asad base in Iraq, which hosted American troops.
The developments of 2019 and 2020 show that Iraqi territory had exclusively become a venue for settling scores between Iran and the U.S. during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
However, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani does not want the events of 2019 and 2020 to be repeated. During Joe Biden’s tenure, although Iran-aligned forces in Iraq carried out attacks against American forces and the Americans also conducted retaliatory strikes against these groups, Tehran and Washington ultimately managed to reach a kind of unwritten understanding to halt these attacks, keeping Iraqi soil safe from Iran-U.S. rivalries.
Even at the height of tensions in the region and the Gaza war, although several attacks were carried out against American military bases in the early weeks of the war, with the resumption of indirect talks between Iran and the U.S. during the thirteenth government through the Oman channel, these attacks quickly ceased. Iraqi groups, while continuing to attack Israeli interests from Iraqi soil, largely refrained from attacking American personnel and interests in Iraq.
During the three years that Al Sudani has held the position of Iraq’s Prime Minister, he has managed to largely control Iraq’s internal situation and restore political stability to the country.
In 2022, after a year-long political vacuum and the parliament’s inability to reach a consensus on forming a government, he succeeded in gaining the trust of Iraqi political groups and took power.
He has so far performed more successfully than his predecessors, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi, and hopes to retain the title of Prime Minister in next year’s fall general elections.
However, he faces significant obstacles to achieving this goal. In addition to internal challenges, which intensified in recent months with the scandal of wiretapping Sudanese government officials’ political rivals, a serious geopolitical obstacle is now emerging against Al Sudani’s plans to maintain the premiership.
There is still no indication of what the new Trump administration’s policy towards Iran will be. The appointment of officials from various backgrounds with diverse views on Iran—from a Secretary of State who strongly supports increasing pressure on Iran to appointing deputies in the Department of Defense who strongly support an agreement with Iran—has made predicting Trump’s administration’s actions regarding Iran difficult.
In this context, Al Sudani is most concerned about the future conditions of Iran-U.S. relations.
It seems Iraq’s diplomatic maneuvers to prevent a potential confrontation between Iran and the U.S. that could affect Iraq began even before the official start of Trump’s administration.
On January 5, just two weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Iraqi media reported, quoting informed officials, that Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani received a special message from Donald Trump regarding Iran.
According to Shafaq News, the message asked Al Sudani to take action to reduce the influence of Iran-backed groups in Iraq and also to confront armed groups outside government control.
Such requests had also been openly communicated to Al Sudani’s government by the U.S. during Joe Biden’s era, but the original sending of Trump’s message to Al Sudani has not been officially confirmed.
Just four days after the claim of Trump’s message to Al Sudani was published, the Iraqi Prime Minister made an official visit to Tehran and met with senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Whether or not he received a message from Trump before this trip, on the eve of Trump’s administration, Al Sudani intends to manage potential Iran-U.S. rivalries in Iraq.
Previously, Al Sudani succeeded in announcing the complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, significantly pleasing Iraqi militia groups and political factions opposed to U.S. presence and close to Iran.
Although the full terms of Al Sudani’s agreement with Joe Biden’s government for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq remain unclear, according to Al Sudani’s government, all American troops, currently estimated at 2,500, will leave Iraq by September 2026.
In the first phase, by September 2025, all American military forces are to withdraw from Baghdad and advisory bases across Iraq, and from September 2025 to September 2026, the remaining American forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq will also leave the country.
It is unclear what will become of this agreement under Trump’s administration. Even during Biden’s tenure, the U.S. Secretary of Defense claimed that the two-year deadline for a complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq was insufficient, but the execution of this agreement was considered a political victory for Al Sudani.
With less than a year left until the 2025 general elections in Iraq, Al Sudani is anxiously following the formation of Donald Trump’s Middle East policy. If Tehran and Washington once again engage in military skirmishes that affect Iraqi territory, all of Al Sudani’s achievements, which had turned Iraq into a hub for foreign investment by establishing security and political stability, will vanish.
