As Iraq’s Coordination Framework scrambles to nominate a prime minister before its constitutional deadline on April 26, a familiar narrative has resurfaced: that Iraq is little more than Iran’s western province. If true, the implications extend well beyond Baghdad — an unbroken Iranian corridor from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean would reshape the security calculus of every state in the region, Israel included. But the reality is considerably more interesting than that lazy shorthand allows.

The vassal thesis has powerful advocates. John Bolton once compared Tehran’s grip on Baghdad to the Soviet stranglehold over postwar Eastern Europe. Iran-aligned militias within the Popular Mobilisation Force have expanded their institutional, political, and economic footprint to a degree that alarms even sympathetic observers at Brookings.

And on April 19, Iranian Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani resurfaced in Baghdad’s Green Zone — his first public appearance since the Iran war began on February 28, after weeks of silence that spawned rumours he had been killed in an airstrike or detained by the IRGC on suspicion of spying for Mossad. That a commander who had just survived existential allegations would spend his first outing arm-twisting Iraqi politicians over the premiership tells you everything about how seriously Tehran takes the question. He arrived, notably, at the same time as US envoy Tom Barrack. Iraqi officials unconvincingly described both visits as unrelated to the prime ministerial selection.

[https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/909258/curious-why-qaani-was-in-baghdad-irgcs-commander-explains]

And yet, every time the vassal narrative appears settled, Baghdad does something to complicate it. The Coordination Framework initially nominated Nouri al-Maliki — a figure so closely identified with Tehran that Donald Trump threatened to cut Iraq’s access to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)