Iraq’s militias cannot be understood as mere security actors or as simple extensions of regional power politics. Rather, they represent a fully formed political economy that emerged from the wreckage of the state and evolved into a cross-border network of interests. This network is not governed by ideology or loyalty, but by the logic of the market. 

Iraq’s militias are no longer part of the chaos; they have become its very architecture. From the moment they appeared as parallel forces to the state, it was clear that they were not founded on doctrine or political vision, but on the vacuum left by collapsing institutions. Starting as mercenaries carrying out sectarian killings and kidnappings, they grew into networks feeding on institutional decay and eventually transformed into autonomous actors accountable only to the opportunities available to them. What was once misread as ‘loyalty’ to Iran or ‘resistance’ against its enemies was, in reality, a misunderstanding of entities that recognise commitment only insofar as it guarantees profit.

The most telling irony is that Iran itself was the first to discover the limits of its influence over these groups.

When Tehran informed Baghdad that a Shia faction operating in Kirkuk had been involved in smuggling Israeli-made drones into Iranian territory during the twelve-day war launched by Israel and the United States, it was conceding that the network of proxies it had built no longer functioned as a loyal network so much as revealing a security breach.

When Tehran informed Baghdad that a Shia faction operating in Kirkuk had been involved in smuggling Israeli-made drones into Iranian territory during the twelve-day war launched by Israel and the United States, it was conceding that the........

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