In great empires, a crisis rarely begins with a gunshot. More often, it begins with a pause. With that heavy, viscous, almost physically palpable pause when all the former participants in the system continue to utter the old words, quote the old formulas, and swear their former allegiance, but no longer understand who is actually giving the orders.
Such a pause hangs today over the Iraqi direction of Iranian policy. At first glance, the external structure has been preserved. In Tehran, there is still a Supreme Leader. The IRGC still controls strategic depth. The network of armed groups in Iraq still possesses money, weapons, political factions, MPs, ministerial channels, economic assets, media platforms, and religious rhetoric. On paper, everything looks familiar.
But in reality, this machine is no longer the same.
The death of Ali Khamenei and the ascent of his son, Mojtaba, became not just a change of figures at the top of the Islamic Republic. It became a transition from a charismatic revolutionary theocracy to a system where the sacred shell remains, but the real center of gravity has definitively shifted to the generals. If under Ruhollah Khomeini the state was a revolutionary theocracy of a single leader, and under Ali Khamenei it was a complex balance between the clergy, the intelligence services, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, then under Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran increasingly resembles a military-religious junta with a clerical facade—a spiritual signboard covering the power of the security apparatus.
This is precisely what changes everything in Iraq.
For decades, Iraqi Shia factions lived in a system where Tehran was not just a sponsor. It was an arbitrator. It distributed roles, resolved conflicts, determined the permissible level of violence, appointed political brokers, and regulated competition between armed groups and state institutions. Qasem Soleimani was not merely the commander of the Quds Force. He was the architect of a special political world where a militia could be a party, a party could be a ministry, a ministry could be a business, and a business could finance an armed wing.
After the assassination of Soleimani, this system already took its first hit. But Ali Khamenei remained the ultimate authority. His word retained its sacred power. His political biography connected the 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, the struggle against the United States, the confrontation with Israel, the Lebanese direction, the Syrian campaign, the Iraqi mobilization, and the idea of the "Axis of Resistance" into a single historical line. For Iraqi groups oriented toward Qom, he was not just a political boss. He was a source of religious legitimation.
Mojtaba Khamenei is not such a source.
He received power not as a revolutionary leader, not as a religious authority of his father’s stature, not as a man who passed through war and state crises, but as a compromise secured by the security establishment. Therefore, from day one, his power looks not like power over the generals, but like power granted by the generals.
From Revolution to Garrison: How the IRGC Became the Real Party of Power
To understand the current crisis, one must return to a fundamental mistake of Western and regional analysis. Iran was too often described as a conventional theocracy. This is convenient, but inaccurate. The Islamic Republic was never solely the rule of the mullahs. It was a hybrid: a revolutionary party without an official party name, a religious state, an intelligence machine, a military corporation, an ideological export project, and a shadow economic holding.
In the early years after the revolution, the center was indeed in the hands of Khomeini. His power was almost absolute. He possessed what cannot be engineered administratively: the myth of foundation. He was the man who symbolically defeated the Shah, humiliated the American system of influence, gave the revolution its language, and turned Shia political theology into an instrument of state governance.
Ali Khamenei, who came to power in 1989, did not have that stature. But he possessed another resource: time. Thirty-seven years in power allowed him to build a network of personal dependence, bureaucratic fear, ideological obligations, and institutional balance. He was no Khomeini, but he became a systemic dispatcher. He knew how to pit centers of power against each other without destroying the state. He allowed the IRGC to grow wealthy but did not let it completely replace the clergy. He allowed the security services to determine regional policy but reserved the right to the final word.
Under him, the Guard Corps transformed from a revolutionary guard into a state within a state. Its structures entered energy, construction, telecommunications, transport, banking schemes, the petrochemical sector, shadow trade, and external operations. The IRGC's share of economic influence, by many estimates, became comparable to control over a huge part of the national economy. This was no longer just an army. It was a financial-security civilization inside the Islamic Republic.
The year 2021 became symbolically important, when dozens of individuals from the IRGC and military backgrounds attempted to participate in the presidential race or were considered as political figures within it. This demonstrated that the security forces are no longer content with the role of guardians of the revolution. They want to be its administrators, ideologues, diplomats, governors, and heirs.
Under Ali Khamenei, this militarization was still contained by his authority. Under Mojtaba, it received a historical window.
Present-day Iran can be described as a regime where the Supreme Leader retains the seal of legitimacy, but strategic decisions are increasingly shaped within a narrow circle of generals, veterans of the war with Iraq, heads of intelligence structures, commanders of the external perimeter, and people for whom security is not a function of the state, but its very meaning. This is no longer a classical Islamic Republic. It is a besieged fortress where theological vocabulary has become the language of mobilization, while the keys to the gates are held by the military.
Iraq as a Mirror of Weakness: Why Baghdad Was the First to Feel the Tectonic Shift
Iraq has always been more than just a neighboring state for Iran. It was strategic depth, a trauma of memory, and a field of revenge all at once.
In the 1980s, it was from Iraqi territory that Saddam Hussein waged war against the Islamic Republic. For a generation of Iranian generals, Iraq forever remained not an external direction, but an extension of their own biographies. Their comrades died there. Their logic of threats was formed there. The conviction was born there that Iran's security cannot end at the Iranian border.
After 2003, the American invasion destroyed the main anti-Iranian barrier in the Arab world. By overthrowing Saddam, the United States opened the door not to a liberal Iraqi state, but to a complex system in which Tehran proved better prepared than Washington. The Americans had tanks, aviation, budgets, and an occupation administration. Iran had people, parties, religious ties, the memory of exile, contacts with the Shia opposition, military cadres, and the ability to work not for a press conference, but for a decade.
Even the first Iraqi Governing Council, created after the invasion, showed the depth of Iranian penetration. A significant portion of its participants had previously lived in Iran, cooperated with Tehran, or belonged to parties that received Iranian support. For Washington, this looked like a side effect of post-Saddam politics. For Tehran, it was historical revenge.
Then, a dual strategy went to work.
On one hand, Iran supported "hard power": armed formations, combat networks, supply channels, training, intelligence, missile, and drone capabilities. The old Badr Corps, linked to Iran even before 2003, became merely the first major piece in a larger mosaic. Later, structures emerged and strengthened that operated no longer as temporary combat groups, but as independent political-military corporations: with ideology, finances, MPs, ministerial interests, and media backing.
On the other hand, Iran invested in "soft power": religious foundations, pilgrimage routes, cultural centers, university ties, trade, energy, banking channels, and influence over the appointment of prime ministers, presidents, parliament speakers, and heads of security structures.
It was precisely the combination of these two forces that made the Iranian model in Iraq so effective. Tehran did not try to conquer Baghdad head-on. It embedded itself into its nervous system.
Soleimani as the Invisible Prime Minister: How One General Held the Iraqi System by the Throat
Qasem Soleimani was unique not because he commanded force. Soleimani's uniqueness lay in the fact that he understood politics as an extension of a secret war, and secret war as an extension of a religious mission.
In Iraq, he was simultaneously a diplomat, a curator, an arbitrator, a military chief, an emissary of the Supreme Leader, and a man who could enter a room where Iraqi leaders were arguing and force them to make a decision. His power consisted not only of threats. His power consisted in the fact that everyone knew: Ali Khamenei stood behind him.
This was fundamental. Iraqi factions could argue among themselves, compete for money, ministries, contracts, and zones of influence. But they knew the vertical. At the top was Ali Khamenei. In the operational field was Soleimani. Inside Iraq was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and a network of commanders who understood both the language of the IRGC and the language of Baghdad politics.
After the assassination of Soleimani and al-Muhandis in January 2020, the system lost more than just two individuals. It lost its synchronization mechanism. Esmail Qaani might hold the same position, but he could not replace the same biography, the same personal authority, and the same ability to speak to Arab commanders as participants in a shared historical enterprise.
Nevertheless, as long as Ali Khamenei was alive, the vertical did not completely collapse. His name allowed cracks to be sealed. His religious status allowed Iraqi proxies to explain to their supporters why they needed to endure, wait, attack, remain silent, enter the government, or take to the streets.
Now, this mechanism is damaged.
Mojtaba Khamenei possesses neither the aura of his father, nor the revolutionary memory of Khomeini, nor the operational legend of Soleimani. For Iraqi factions, he is a figure who emerged from the bureaucratic shadow. He may be a symbol of continuity, but not a source of unconditional obedience. And if the Supreme Leader is not a source of obedience, then who makes the final decisions?
The answer is simple and dangerous: the generals.
Four Camps of Militias: Who Will Surrender Weapons, Who Will Bargain, Who Will Go to Confrontation
Today, Iraqi armed groups face their most serious choice since their institutionalization following the fight against ISIS. The question is no longer whether they will be part of the political system. They became part of it long ago. The question is different: can they retain weapons as an autonomous source of power.
US pressure on Baghdad has intensified sharply. Washington demands the limitation or dismantling of armed structures linked to Iran, especially those that retain the ability to attack American facilities, threaten US allies in the region, and undermine the sovereignty of the Iraqi government. The new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, has found himself in the position of a man who must simultaneously avoid provoking a civil conflict, not lose the support of the Shia political block, avoid a final falling out with Washington, and not become a hostage to the most radical factions.
This is an almost impossible task.
Currently, four camps are effectively forming within the pro-Iranian and Iran-adjacent armed field.
The first camp is the pragmatists of integration. These are factions and political structures that have already entered the state and economy too deeply to risk everything for the sake of symbolic resistance. Their leaders possess political offices, parliamentary ties, business interests, contracts, access to budget streams, and regional brokers. For them, weapons are important, but the preservation of assets is even more important. They are ready to discuss the transfer of heavy weaponry to the state, formal integration, legal regularization, and a "sovereign model" under the control of Baghdad. Their logic is simple: it is better to become part of the state than to be bombed outside of it.
The second camp is the tactical wait-and-seers. They do not want to be the first to surrender their weapons, but they also do not want to be the first to take a hit. These forces are waiting to see how the bargaining between Baghdad, Washington, and Tehran ends. They will support any formula that allows them to save face and retain part of their security potential. Their position will shift depending on who appears stronger.
The third camp is the ideological hardliners. For them, disarmament means capitulation, not reform. They view weapons as a religious, political, and strategic obligation. Their argument is built around resistance to the US, Israel, and "external dictation." These groups will demand, first and foremost, the withdrawal of American forces, an end to pressure, and the recognition of their role as part of the "national resistance." They may agree to coordination with the state, but not to the loss of autonomy.
The fourth camp is the silent factions and shadow networks. They do not publicly take a hardline stance because their real strength is not always located in official brigades. These are people, money, warehouses, smuggling routes, communication channels, intelligence cells, local commanders, tribal contacts, and economic fronts. Even if major factions begin formally transferring weaponry, this shadow infrastructure may persist.
This is precisely where the main risk lies. Disarmament in Iraq may turn out to be not the dismantling of power, but its redistribution from a visible form to an invisible one.
Washington Presses, Tehran Is Louder Than Usual in Its Silence
The American strategy in Iraq today is built on a rare combination of threat and opportunity. The threat is obvious: sanctions, strikes, freezing of aid, pressure on political leaders, engagement with the banking sector, restricting access to dollar channels, and warnings about consequences for those who continue attacks. The opportunity is also clear: if Baghdad demonstrates the ability to restore the state monopoly on weapons, it will gain more space for relations with the US, the Gulf states, Jordan, and international financial institutions.
But the US faces a long-standing problem: Iraq cannot simply be "pushed" to get a result. This state lives not by the logic of command, but by the logic of a balance of fears. Any prime minister in Baghdad is forced to ask himself not only what Washington wants, but also what a given armed group can do in Basra, Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Diyala, or on the border with Syria.
For Ali al-Zaidi, the risk is clear. If he moves too fast, he will be accused of serving the American agenda. If he moves too slowly, Washington will decide he is weak or dependent on the militias. If he attempts to disarm only a portion of the groups, the rest will call it a selective war. If he announces a general process but cannot see it through to the end, the state will look even weaker.
Tehran, for its part, has found itself in an unusual situation. Previously, it could manage escalation through a clear vertical hierarchy. Today, its signal has become less unified. The new Supreme Leader does not possess the former power. The IRGC wants to retain its levers. The Iranian state is under pressure from war, sanctions, internal control, and the need to demonstrate resilience. Therefore, Iraqi factions receive not a single clear order, but a set of contradictory impulses: do not surrender strategic positions, do not provoke a catastrophic strike, do not destroy political assets, do not allow the US to gain a victory, but also do not drag Iran into an unmanageable escalation.
This is the crisis of an empire of proxies: the center no longer speaks with one voice.
Najaf Against Qom: The Religious Fault Line They Are Afraid to Speak of Aloud
The Iraqi Shia world has never been monolithic. An external observer often sees only the word "Shias" and automatically projects the Iranian model onto Iraq. This is a gross error.
Najaf and Qom are two different political-religious universes. The Najaf tradition, linked to the authority of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is historically more cautious regarding the direct rule of the clergy. It emphasizes religious mentorship, the social role of spiritual authority, and limited intervention in state administration. The Qom model, embodied in the Islamic Republic, is based on the principle of Wilayat al-Faqih—the supremacy of the Islamic jurist as the political ruler.
For Iran, this distinction has always been a strategic problem. Tehran could not simply subjugate Najaf. Sistani's authority is immense, his influence among the Shias of Iraq and beyond is deep, and his cautious political line often stood as an alternative to the revolutionary export of Qom.
Iraqi pro-Iranian factions solved this problem through dual legitimation. Within Iraqi society, they spoke the language of national resistance and defense of the country. Within the ideological vertical, they oriented themselves toward Qom and the Supreme Leader of Iran. Under Ali Khamenei, this scheme worked because he was a recognized pole of revolutionary Shiism.
Under Mojtaba Khamenei, the scheme becomes weaker. His religious weight is incomparable to the weight of major Marjas. His political status depends on the military apparatus. His public legitimacy is being formed under conditions of crisis, rather than historical consensus. This gives Najaf and the Iraqi state camp more moral space to assert a simple idea: weapons must belong to the state, not to groups subordinate to an external religious-military vertical.
But even here, there is no simple solution. Najaf does not want a civil war. Sistani has always acted cautiously, understanding the price of an internal Shia rift. Therefore, religious pressure on the militias will likely be indirect: through the language of sovereignty, law, state order, and the prevention of chaos.
The Money of Resistance: Why Weapons Are Also About Economics
Discussions regarding the disarmament of Iraqi groups often sound overly military. In reality, weapons are merely the visible portion of a larger system. Behind the rifle stands a budget. Behind the missile is a smuggling route. Behind the combat brigade is a political quota. Behind the ideology is an economic interest.
In recent years, many armed structures have become participants in a massive shadow economy. Border crossings, customs schemes, construction contracts, security services, energy supplies, public procurement, banking operations, charitable foundations, and land assets—all of this has created a stratum of people for whom "resistance" has become not just an idea, but a business model.
Therefore, dismantling the militias cannot be solely a matter of surrendering weapons. It is a question of redistributing property. If the state demands that these groups give up their armed autonomy, it is effectively demanding that they give up a portion of their income, status, and immunity.
Pragmatic leaders understand this. Consequently, they will seek a deal: the legalization of assets in exchange for formal subordination, political security in exchange for a reduction in military activity, and the retention of a portion of their personnel within security structures in exchange for the transfer of heavy weaponry.
Radicals understand this as well. For them, disarmament is dangerous not only ideologically, but also materially. Without weapons, they become ordinary political players. And an ordinary political player in Iraq is subject to investigations, competition, judicial pressure, and the loss of a monopoly on fear.
The Region Looks at Baghdad: The Gulf and Jordan Demand an End to the Gray Zone
For the Gulf states and Jordan, Iraqi militias have long ceased to be an internal Iraqi issue. Their missile, drone, and political capabilities are perceived as part of Iranian pressure on the Arab periphery. Any attack on an American facility, any threat toward Jordan, and any activation of groups linked to Iran immediately transforms Iraq into a source of regional risk.
This is precisely why Arab capitals will support Baghdad's course toward restoring the state monopoly on violence. However, they will also remain cautious. No one wants a collapse of Iraq. For the Gulf states, a stable Baghdad is more lucrative than a battlefield between the US, Iran, and the militias. Iraq can be an energy partner, a trade bridge, a market, a transport hub, and a buffer. But only if it does not turn into a territory where decisions on war and peace are made by the commanders of armed groups rather than the prime minister and parliament.
For Azerbaijan, this narrative is not distant either. The South Caucasus, the Caspian, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf are becoming more tightly interconnected. Any weakening or militarization of Iran affects communications, energy, transport routes, regional security, and the behavior of proxy networks. Azerbaijan is interested in a predictable Iran, a stable Iraq, and a regional order where state sovereignty is stronger than ideological armed networks.
Three Scenarios: A Deal, a Split, or War
Currently, three main scenarios are opening up before Iraq and the Iranian network of influence.
The first scenario is a controlled deal. Baghdad, supported by the US, the Gulf states, and a portion of the Shia political class, achieves the gradual transfer of armed groups under state control. A portion of the weapons is surrendered, some commanders receive guarantees, certain structures enter official security agencies, and radical elements are marginalized. This is the best scenario, but it requires a rare convergence of conditions: pressure from Washington, caution from Tehran, discipline from Baghdad, and a readiness among pragmatic factions to sacrifice autonomy for the sake of survival.
The second scenario is a partial split. Some factions agree to a deal, others resist, and a third group goes into the shadows. The state achieves a visible success but not full control. Formally, the disarmament process moves forward; factually, a network of hidden warehouses, autonomous cells, and political blackmail persists. This is the most likely scenario, as it aligns with the Iraqi political culture of compromise without a definitive solution.
The third scenario is a military confrontation. If the US decides that Baghdad is unable or unwilling to act, and radical groups continue their attacks, a series of strikes against militia infrastructure is possible. This could push Iraq into a new phase of internal instability. In such a case, pro-Iranian factions will attempt to present themselves as defenders of sovereignty, leaving the government caught between American pressure and the streets. This scenario is the most dangerous, as it is capable of destroying not only the militia structures, but also the fragile balance of the Iraqi state.
The Main Conclusion: The Empire of Proxies Is Not Vanishing, but It Is Losing Its Conductor
Iranian influence in Iraq will not collapse in a single day. It is embedded too deeply within politics, religion, economics, security, and the social fabric. Tehran retains cadres, money, connections, fear, ideology, and historical memory. However, the previous management model is already damaged.
Empires of proxies are sustained not by weapons alone. They are sustained by trust in the center. By the conviction that the center knows more, sees further, and will protect its own at the decisive moment. Today, that conviction has cracked.
Mojtaba Khamenei may become a symbol of continuity, but he has not yet become a source of power on his father's scale. The IRGC can manage a war, but generals are rarely good arbitrators of complex political mosaics. They know how to subjugate, but they are less skilled at consensus-building. They know how to apply pressure, but they are less adept at maintaining a multi-layered network of loyalties where religion, money, fear, tribe, party, and state are intertwined into a single knot.
Iraqi militias sense this. Therefore, they no longer move as a single organism. Some are seeking a deal. Others are waiting. A third group is preparing to resist. A fourth is transferring assets into the shadows.
This is not the end of Iranian influence in Iraq. But it is the end of its former shape.
The Middle East is entering a moment when the old "Axis of Resistance" ceases to be a vertical hierarchy and transforms into a collection of armed interests bound by a shared memory, but no longer always by a shared discipline. For Washington, this is an opportunity. For Baghdad, a trial. For Tehran, a threat of its own periphery unraveling. For the region, it is a warning: when an empire loses its conductor, the orchestra does not fall silent. It begins to play, each musician their own part.
And it is precisely at this moment that the most dangerous music is just beginning.