After lengthy meetings in Baghdad, leaders in the ruling coalition thought they were able to complete a settlement with representatives of pro-Iranian factions about the post-US withdrawal arrangements, especially the fate of weapons outside the country.
However, after attacks launched last Thursday from southern Iraq, near the border with Iran, against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, these leaders found themselves, most likely, “politicians searching for roles in a theater they do not control.”
Private sources and officials who spoke with Asharq Al-Awsat reveal that, before the recent attacks, with Iranian help, the factions succeeded in “emptying the arms control plan after they besieged Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi politically and took away the tools of pressure and implementation from him.”
The situation is that despair is spreading among officials in various authorities in Baghdad. During a meeting with an American official who recently visited Iraq, a senior Kurdish official addressed him, saying: “The political system now is like an old bus speeding down a slope without brakes.”
During the past weeks, the members of the negotiating committee on arms control, namely Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister, Muhammad Shia al-Sudani, the former prime minister, and Hadi al-Amiri, the official of the Badr Organization, spent hours over at least four meetings, negotiating a settlement based on “not using weapons,” but on the condition of “not neglecting them,” according to the sources.
Despite this “sham” formula, the representatives of the factions planted, without objection from the senior negotiators, a “time bomb” in the settlement, deeming “any agreement not to use weapons void in specific circumstances,” while the two sides reached a timetable that would continue until the beginning of 2028 until the factions finally agreed to limit their weapons.
Many believe that the timetable, the initial details of which were obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat, represents a reflection of the vision of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, who asked the Iraqi factions to “buy time” with the United States.
In this atmosphere, leaders in the “coordination framework” jumped into the field after months of loss of political dynamism, as a result of Iranian pressure led by Qalibaf and other Iranian officials who visited Baghdad extensively last month, to prevent the United States from achieving gains that had begun with the unprecedented support for the Ali al-Zaidi government.
After the formation of Ali al-Zaidi’s government, hopes rose in Iraq and the region that it would be able to address one of the most complex issues in the Iraqi political system, but it became clear with the passage of time that the factions had “experience in taming successive governments in Baghdad.”
The balance of power in Baghdad changed. September 30 has become a “date for factional victory,” as people from Shiite factions and parties describe it, instead of a date for stockpiling weapons, while American forces are accelerating their departure without leaving air defense equipment even with their closest Kurdish allies in Erbil in the Kurdistan region.
About a week before the attack on the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia, negotiators from the “Coordination Framework” and representatives of the factions reached a timetable that extends to the end of 2027, without guarantees, except that the Iraqi factions pledge, according to the draft seen by Asharq Al-Awsat, to integrate their fighters in the form of brigades within the “Popular Mobilization Forces” without handing over weapons, in a process that begins from September 30 and continues until December 31. 2026.
The second phase of the agreement will be built at the beginning of 2027 by scheduling the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Iraq to be completed on July 1 of next year, while the third phase begins with the formation of a quartet committee that includes the “Popular Mobilization Forces,” the “coordination framework,” the factions, and the government to monitor the implementation of the Turkish integration and withdrawal, until the beginning of 2028.
However, representatives of the factions agreed to the plan on the condition that it be “immediately considered unilaterally canceled” in the event that the war against Iran is renewed during any stage of implementation, or that “any party in the coordination framework or the factions is exposed to an existential threat,” according to two people who were briefed on the content of the meeting.
One of them told Asharq Al-Awsat, “The factions are committed, in return, not to target foreign companies and others during the stages of the agreement.”
During the past months, Iraqi officials have been informing diplomatic and intelligence circles in the United States that Baghdad has left the unit of arenas that Iran established in 4 capitals in the region, but they need “special treatment to solve the arms problem outside the country.”
Looking at the recent draft agreement, the factions still closely link the two tracks: regional war and confining weapons to the state.
There was agreement between the four leaders in the “coordination framework” and the faction representatives on the necessity of “protecting the resistance.” In the last meeting, they drafted the agreement that outlines the features of the post-September 30 period “from the factions’ point of view,” according to a leader who was present at the meeting.
The leader, requesting that his name not be revealed, said, “The agreement may be announced early next October, depending on the circumstances (...) Nothing is guaranteed.”
At that meeting, which was held in early September, Haider al-Gharawi, the official of the “Loyal Ansar Allah” faction, and Abu Alaa al-Wala’i, the official of the “Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades,” were present, along with a representative of Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, the official of the “Hezbollah Brigades,” and another representing Akram al-Kaabi, the official of the “Harakat al-Nujaba.” All of these factions are close to Iran and are also connected to shadow factions such as the “Awliya al-Dam” and “Ahl al-Kahf.”
According to two people who were briefed on what took place at the meeting, representatives of the factions set “priorities” of “not giving up weapons, and avoiding any process, even if it is formal, that shows the matter as a surrender to the United States, but without going to an escalation that would push the Americans to stop supporting the government of Ali al-Zaidi.”
A senior political advisor in the ruling coalition believes that “the new approach that favors the factions over the government received a strong boost after it leaked behind the scenes of the Shiite parties that the Americans would also not mind restricting weapons formally on the condition that they are not used.”
There is a deep-rooted impression of the futility of negotiating with the factions, and there is nothing wrong with a minimum agreement that guarantees a freeze or regulation of weapons. The advisor told Asharq Al-Awsat, “Despair has begun to seep into the Americans and Iraqi officials concerned with restricting weapons. Indeed, there are those who have already stopped exerting pressure to make the plan a success, and abandoned the file out of boredom with the factions’ tricks,” as he put it.
However, an Iraqi official who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat, requesting that his name not be revealed, warned against “assuming a lenient American position, as messages have finally arrived coinciding with the appointment of Stephen Fagin as the new Charge d’Affaires of the American Embassy.”
The official said: “It is said in private meetings that Washington considers the factions’ weapons to be the arsenal of a hostile state that Baghdad cannot keep, but must destroy.”
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi was less involved in the “coordination framework” negotiations with the factions. Perhaps because “he does not feel that the negotiating party is neutral enough,” in the words of an advisor to the ruling coalition.
In a recent meeting of the “coordination framework” held in Baghdad, Al-Zaidi told Shiite party leaders: “I will be frank with you, the committee that negotiates the factions is biased... I do not feel that trusting it is a wise decision.”
But Al-Zaidi himself reduced the speed of inventorying weapons. Those close to him said that he “realized how far removed from reality the rush he started with after meeting with US President Donald Trump (mid-July last year) was,” but a prominent leader responded to him by saying: “The committee includes veteran and expert figures and is undertaking a complex task that it has not been able to, and will not be able to, accomplish.”
According to a person close to the government palace in Baghdad, “Al-Zaidi decided to retreat a little, but in a calculated manner without abandoning the project.” A senior official also quoted Al-Zaidi during one of the meetings: “There is no solution to the impasse except by imposing state authority over weapons.”
In parallel with the four meetings held between the factions and the leaders of the “coordination framework,” Al-Zaidi engaged in bilateral dialogues with the “Al-Nujaba Movement” and the “Sayyid Martyrs Brigades,” offering them what reliable sources described as “civilian privileges” in exchange for a reasonable formula for disarmament.
But the factions demand more than that. A person close to the official of one of the factions says that it is “looking for guarantees that it will not be legally prosecuted and that the background of its members and leaders will not be scrutinized.” He adds: “Everyone knows that no one can give these guarantees, but requiring them is part of the process of buying time.”
A person close to Al-Nujaba said, “The factions see civilian privileges (meaning positions in government institutions) as a natural entitlement due to their role in fighting ISIS,” noting that “Hezbollah Brigades” was not part of the bilateral dialogues with the government due to “a deep crisis of confidence that forces them to impose more severe conditions.”
At most, the government's attempts to lure the factions to a settlement did not succeed, and the American official told Asharq Al-Awsat that "the Iraqis he met felt that Al-Zaidi stood alone, without friends or allies." “The entire process (weapons inventory) has reached a dead end, and they do not know the way out of all this.”
The American official said that he heard from the Kurdish official in Erbil a similar tone of despair: “There will be a huge crash of the dilapidated bus in Baghdad (...) The brothers in Baghdad cannot brake the factions.”
