US reaffirms: Pro-Iran militias in Iraq must disband

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert reaffirmed on Thursday that it remained the US position that the Iranian regime “must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias.”

The US first articulated that position six months ago, shortly after President Donald Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Iranian nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA.)

On May 11, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the conservative Heritage Foundation and described in detail the tough, new US policy on Iran. He laid out twelve conditions that Tehran must meet to get a new deal with Washington and see sanctions lifted.

They included: “Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias.”

Pompeo’s statement marked a sharp break from the position of his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, whom Pompeo replaced in April. Under Tillerson, the US had continued the Obama administration policy of turning a blind eye to Iran’s ever-increasing influence in Iraq, including the role of Iranian-backed militias.

Shortly before November 5, when the latest round of sanctions came into force targeting Iran’s energy, finance, and shipping sectors, the State Department began tweeting the twelve conditions for Iranian compliance that Pompeo had laid out in May. The US embassy in Baghdad then retweeted them.

With 6 days to go before the sanctions deadline, this is the 6th requirement for #Iran’s regime to behave like a normal state: The Iranian regime must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias. pic.twitter.com/IRsZR90KmN

— Department of State (@StateDept) October 30, 2018

Requirement #6—calling for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias—drew protests from senior members of the Iraqi government.

On November 3, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting what it called “interference in Iraq’s internal affairs” and demanding that the Twitter post be deleted.

Of course, it was not deleted. Two days later, as the second round of US-sanctions took effect, Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, attended a meeting at the Baghdad headquarters of the militias—known in English as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and in Arabic as the Hashd al-Shaabi.

Abdul-Mahdi also rejected the US demand to disband the militias, affirming, “The Hashd al-Shaabi are a big reality; we cannot ignore them. It is our duty to support them.”

Indeed, Abdul-Mahdi affirmed that it was necessary for the Hashd al-Shaabi to remain as an entity in Iraq, and “I will do my utmost to ensure that [they] have full rights.”

Kurdistan 24 asked Nauert if, nonetheless, it remained the US position that it was necessary to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate the Shia militias. She responded, “Nothing has changed with regard to our position on that.”

Asked about the Iraqi complaint of US interference in its internal affairs, Nauert said, “I don’t think we’re interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs.”

“We take great pains not to do that,” and “we respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government,” she stated (indeed, as this reporter can attest, US criticism, at least publicly, of the Iraqi government is rare.)

Although the US has taken a much tougher line against the Iranian presence in Iraq, since Pompeo became Secretary of State and John Bolton became National Security Adviser, some people argue that yet more needs to be done.

In particular, on Wednesday, the leadership of the subcommittee on terrorism of the House Foreign Affairs Committe—the senior Republican, Ted Poe (Texas), as well as the senior Democrat, William Keating (Massachusetts)—pressed the administration as to why it had not designated two militias as terrorist organizations, given their particularly close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC.)

Poe and Keating both cited Asa’ib Ahl al Haq and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and both Congressmen suggested that the US embassy in Baghdad had resisted such a move.

The current ambassador, Douglas Silliman, has come under harsh criticism from liberal Iraqis for accommodating pro-Iranian elements in Iraq.

A former Sunni Arab parliamentarian, Mithal al-Alusi, recently complained about precisely that.

“The people who represent your country in the embassy and Mr. Brett McGurk,” Special Presidential Envoy to the Coalition against the Islamic State, have not stood up to Qasim Soleimani, head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, but, rather, they have accommodated him, Alusi told a Washington DC conference.

Last week, the White House announced that Matthew Tueller, currently US ambassador in Yemen, will be replacing Silliman in Baghdad.

Editing by Nadia Riva