In May, Hassan Fada’am traded his military fatigues for a suit when he became one of 45 Shiite militiamen elected to Iraq’s 329-seat parliament. Fada’am trained as a soldier in Iran and fought against Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq. Now he’s a politician as paramilitary groups backed by Iran have doubled their number of seats in Iraq’s Parliament.
The Fatih Alliance bloc that represents them has become the second largest political bloc.
In interviews, eight militiamen who have translated their battlefield success into electoral victories set out how they plan to use this new platform. Six months after the vote, Iraq’s new Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi has yet to win parliamentary approval for his government. Yet already one thing is evident, the militia are better placed than ever to influence policies, from domestic security to foreign policy.
Abdel-Mahdi’s predecessor as prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has said he fears the militiamen will undermine efforts to unify Iraq. Its young democracy is trying to balance the demands of its Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites after years of sectarian conflict, and the economy is only beginning to recover from the country’s war with Daesh. Abadi tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent militia leaders from standing in the 2018 election.
“How can a military outfit have a political opinion? This does not happen in any part of the world. It is prohibited,” he said at the time. The militiamen responded by announcing they would quit their military roles to comply with Iraq’s electoral code.
Some in Washington are also worried. Republican senators have introduced a bill that would impose sanctions on two Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat al-Nujaba. Sponsors of the Iranian Proxies Terrorist Sanctions Act include Senators David Perdue, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Iran is unperturbed. “In the meetings we had with our Iraqi brothers, they assured us that Iraq could not be used by America,” said a former Iranian ambassador in the region, now a senior official in Tehran.
Among Iran’s Iraqi allies is the Badr Organization, which won 21 seats at the election. For two decades, Badr’s leader Hadi al-Amiri led the fight against Saddam Hussein from exile in Iran. A Badr local commander, Karim Nouri, said communication with Iran was ongoing “to keep Tehran’s rivals the United States and Saudi Arabia in check.” He did not elaborate.
Hisham Hashemi, a security adviser to Iraq’s government, said he believed that Iran was in touch with Shiite politicians “in order to have a means of applying political pressure, to guarantee their loyalty, to make sure they have an armed force loyal to them. They provide advice on PR, propaganda, marketing, media, speeches, social media.”