Houthis, Hamas open offices in Baghdad: How Iran won over Iraq with 2,500 US troops in the country

Almost quietly, Iran and Iraq — once arch rivals — have joined ranks in West Asia. A proof of the growing ties comes from the fact that two strong Iran-backed militias — Houthis and Hamas — have opened their offices in Baghdad in the past two months.  

The Iraqi government has not yet officially confirmed the development but photographs have surfaced and media reports including by New York Times show that the two outfits, considered proxies of Iran, have offices in Baghdad.

The Houthis, a Shia group with control over a large part of Yemen, opened their office in Baghdad in July. Hamas, a largely Sunni group ruling Gaza and currently fighting a war with Iraq for over 11 months, has recently opened its office nearby. The opening of their offices in Baghdad marks a significant shift in Iraq’s alliances and also showcases how Iran — despite strong American disapprovals — has grown its influence in the West Asian region.

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Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian last week visited Iraq on his first foreign tour. The two countries concluded 14 bilateral agreements during the “historic” tour. At a joint presser with Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in Baghdad, Pezeshkian said, “The crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza expose the falsehood of Western countries and international organisations when it comes to human rights.”

All this has happened while the US continues to maintain its military presence in Iraq for over 20 years. There are still around 2,500 American troops in Iraq, where the US has recently carried out two major operations against the Islamic State, which is reported to have taken advantage of the ongoing Gaza war to regroup and rearm itself.

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A covert establishment

An NYT report said that neither the Hamas nor the Houthi office in Baghdad bears public signage, and the locations have been kept confidential. This move aligns with Iran’s broader strategy to unite its proxies and foster collaboration across borders. By facilitating the opening of these offices, Baghdad has become a new hub in the shadow war between Iran, Israel, and the United States.

Sharing about a 1,000-km border, Iran and Iraq have a history of military conflicts. Soon after the Iranian revolution of 1979, when the country became a Shia republic headed by a religious figure — called Rahbar — Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein ordered invasion of the country. The war went on for eight years — 1980-88.

The eight-year-war was Iraq’s response to Iran’s hardline Shia turn and it came from a Sunni-leader who ran an authoritarian government ruling a country having Shias as majority. The two countries continued to have adversarial relations until 2003, when a US-led coalition force deposed Saddam Hussein, who was later executed in the US. Hussein feared that Iranian revolution may spill over Iraq and threaten his rule due to sectarian Shia affinity with the neighbouring country.

The ouster of Saddam Hussein, who ran a secular government in Iraq and tackled extremist groups such as Muslim Brotherhood to which Hamas was affiliated, provided a window of opportunity to Iran to rebuild its ties and strengthened its position in West Asia, where it largely remained isolated for long as it also faced cold response from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In recent years, Iran has led what many believe a covert campaign to reset its ties with Iraq. The offices of the Houthis and Hamas are being viewed as a reflection of the delicate political situation in Iraq and Iran’s growing influence in the country.  

Reports suggest that despite many Iraqi officials’ discomfort with this development, they appear to lack the political leverage to resist Iran’s increasing influence. Social media has been flooded with photos that reveal the presence of these groups in Iraq, underscoring how openly the situation has evolved.

Iraq’s shifting allegiance

Over the past 20 years, since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has struggled to balance its relations with both Iran and the United States. While the US still maintains troops in the country, Iran’s influence has steadily grown.  

Iran has nurtured sympathetic forces — such as Shiite militias that have also gained political power — in a sustained manner over the years, managing to embed itself deeply in Iraq’s political and security apparatus. The rise of these Shiite militias, some of which were legitimised by Iraq’s government, has shifted the country’s political dynamics.  

The latest political agreement in Iraq also sees that a Sunni Kurd is the president of the country as the official head of the state, the executive head of the government is a Shia Muslim and the parliament speaker is a Sunni Arab. The arrangement has given Iran relative emotive superiority in Iraq despite the country having undergone a constitutional transformation under the supervision of the US. This explains why foreign groups such as Hamas and the Houthis have established formal ties with Baghdad.

What Iran is eyeing for

The establishment of these offices appears to be a part of a larger, regional strategy by Iran, which has long been trying to cultivate a “Shiite Crescent” of influence that stretches from Lebanon (via Hezbollah) to Yemen (via the Houthis). Now, Iraq seems to be playing a central role.  

Iran’s aim looks clear — to counter the influence of the US and Israel in West Asia. As part of this effort, Iran-backed proxy groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, collaborate on military operations and share intelligence.  

The ongoing Israel’s war in Gaza has seen instances of what seemed coordinated attacks on the Jewish nation from Lebanon and Yemen. Hezbollah has linked its attacks to the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip. And the Houthis have repeatedly struck in the Red Sea, linking their strikes to Israeli assaults on Palestinians. Now, with Iran having successfully integrated Iraq with what it calls the “axis of resistance” — against the West-Israel alliance — Tehran looks to dominate the region for the first time in decades.

Has the US lost Iraq to Iran forever?

There is little doubt that the US is not willing to fight longer wars in Iraq. Its military campaigns have reduced in number and scale. The American forces went to Iraq more than 20 years ago looking for weapons of mass destruction and scored a quick victory over Saddam Hussein’s forces. Iraq subsequently saw a near-decade-long civil war.  

No weapons of mass destruction were discovered but the US lost more than 4,400 troops. These facts turned the US popular opinion against keeping forces in Iraq. There are still, however, about 2,500 American troops there but their military campaigns are restricted.

There is also a growing realisation in the US administration that it can’t keep its forces to prevent an insurgent group, say Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or the Taliban in Afghanistan, from assuming power if the local population extend support to such militias. This shift in the US policy has also provided an opportunity to Iran to gain more ground in Iraq, where sectarian groups hold sway over various regions.

The presence of Iranian-backed groups in Iraq, however, has raised concerns about potential Israeli retaliatory strikes within Iraq. If that happens, regional balance will get further distorted. Another aspect that may come to play as Iraq deepens its engagement with Hamas and the Houthis is that those influenced by Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology may help the Gazan Palestinian outfit regroup and those influenced by hardline Shia ideology are likely to stand behind the Houthis. Iraq may be on the curve of becoming a playground of another sectarian rivalry as West Asia finds itself engulfed by multilateral military conflicts with the potential of turning into a regional war.