It is no secret that events in Iraq’s neighborhood have affected its politics, society, and economy. Although the changes that occurred in the region after the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 were reflected in Iraq, the greater impact on Iraqi politics will emerge from the repercussions of February 28, 2026.
The assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the transfer of the position of supreme leader to his son Mojtaba have led to Iran’s transformation from a theocratic state controlled by the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist (or Willayet Al Faqeeh) into a “juntocracy,” in which the final word belongs to the generals on the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This structural shift of the Iranian regime, and threats to its very existence during the war with the United States, has increased the power of Iran’s influence over Shia sects in Iraq and the region. These networks now feel more obliged to act because it is the generals, not the clerics, who give the orders and they are facing a new, existential threat.
Iran’s increasing sway over the sects
The Iranian regime’s ideological hold over its followers at home and abroad has not diminished. It has shifted. The Supreme Council of the Revolutionary Guard still invokes the power of religion and sect in influencing its followers, but it has taken on a militarized urgency. The Guard is now telling all Shia across the region that if Tehran falls, so too does all Shia governance in the region. Tehran is invoking this shared fate to justify its dominance over its factions in the region and many Iraqis—including those who do not believe in Tehran’s spiritual political power (known as the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) or are not affiliated with the armed factions—believe this rhetoric. The threats to Tehran are threats to all Shia.
This belief in a shared existential threat explains the sharp rise in the number of armed Iraqi factions refusing to disarm: five groups refusing to disarm grew to ten after the latest escalation of attacks on Iran and the revelation that the US National Security Council had recently discussed plans for American ground operations and airstrikes on infrastructure inside Iran. It is also why Harakat al-Nujaba forces threatened to “arrest” Iraqi army and police forces if they tried to enter their headquarters south of Baghdad. In this context, the United States, in coordination with Saudi Arabia, followed through with strikes on Iraqi militias last week. In response, the militias said that they will attack Saudi Arabia within days.
A state of sects
The importance of this ideological shift among Shia is because of the institutional structure of governance in Iraq. This structure is built on the supremacy of sect over state. Although Iraq’s constitution, enacted in 2005, stipulates that Iraq’s political system is a parliamentary one, actual practice has divided state institutions from the highest to the lowest level along sectarian lines—turning those institutions into the property of the sects rather than of the state. Accordingly, Iraq has become neither a state of individual rule nor of institutional rule. It is neither a parliamentary system nor a presidential one. It is, simply, a state of sectarian rule, in which each sect (Shia, Sunni, Kurd) has a political institution representing it. Each sect also has a presidential-level post and each sect has an agreed upon sovereign ministry.
Except for the Kurds, the sects have coalesced into two political institutions, one Shia and one Sunni. The Coordination Framework was established in 2021 as an alliance of all Shia parties (except for the Sadrists), while the National Political Council represents all of the Sunnis. After winning the 2021 elections, the Sadrists (Shia) tried to build a cross-sectarian government when they founded a tripartite alliance with Sunnis and Kurds, but the Iran-backed Coordination Framework confronted them politically and with force, compelled Muqtada al-Sadr to withdraw, and left the Coordination Framework to monopolize Shia political decisionmaking.
The Coordination Framework’s battle with Sadr was a message, backed by Tehran through its armed factions, to anyone who would try to challenge the sectarian institutional framework. Former Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani clearly understood this message after his mixed (Shia-Sunni) electoral bloc won the 2025 elections. Despite distancing himself from the Coordination Framework for months before the elections, al-Sudani pragmatically returned to the Coordination Framework afterwards to avoid challenging it in forming the government and choosing the prime minister. Since 2025, the Coordination Framework has succeeded in establishing itself as a structural mechanism above the state, imposing its will in parliament and appointing both the president of the republic and the speaker of parliament.
This year, the United States attempted to break this sectarian structure by choosing a prime minister from outside the Coordination Framework. Washington threatened to cut off support from Baghdad if it chose a Tehran-aligned candidate and feted new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi with an official White House visit last month. The US administration hopes that al-Zaidi will be able to fully disarm Iraqi armed fractions ahead of the American troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of September. Instead, senior members of the Coordination Framework told the author that the issue of disarming the Iraqi armed factions is tied to the outcome of the ongoing US-Iranian war. If the existence of the Iranian regime is at risk, or Tehran does not give its consent regarding the disarming of these factions, then important forces within the Coordination Framework will not support al-Zaidi in fulfilling his promise to President Donald Trump to dissolve the factions before the end of this year.
Although al-Zaidi stated in one of the Framework’s meetings that he would be willing to risk an armed confrontation with those factions in order to disarm them, he knows that the Framework will not allow a Shia-Shia military confrontation. He would then have no option but resignation, especially since the White House would then withdraw its support for failing to carry out the very mission for which it had backed him.
Despite the clamorous atmosphere and dazzling spotlight that accompanied al-Zaidi’s visit to Washington and the major economic agreements signed there, experience with all previous prime ministers shows that what matters most is neither the decision nor even external support, whatever its source. What matters most is having an agreed agenda among all parties on the core issues, such as disarming Iraqi militias. Unless al-Zaidi manages to curb the role of sectarian institutions in shaping Iraq’s state decisions and in determining its fate and direction, he will be nothing more than another copy of previous prime ministers, men who had their triumphs and travels through the capitals of global and regional decision-making, while inside Iraq they were nothing more than implementers of policies decided by the sectarian councils. The battle before al-Zaidi, then, is not disarming the factions, but restoring the state’s monopoly over its own sovereignty.
Munqith Dagher is the director of Gallup International for the MENA region and a former advisor to the Iraqi prime minister.
Further reading
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Image: The Ministerial Council for National Security meets for an emergency meeting, chaired by Iraqi Prime Minister and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi, to discuss the latest security developments and the attack carried by the United States and Saudi Arabian air forces, Baghdad, Iraq, July 29, 2026. Media Office of the Prime Minister/Handout via REUTERS