According to some media outlets, including Iran International, thousands of Iraqi militiamen have already crossed into Iran to help Tehran quell the ongoing protests.
“There is no interest or justification for the Iraqi government to send reserve forces to Tehran, nor does Iran need additional reinforcements from Baghdad,” Sheikh Ghaith Al-Tamimi, a prominent Iraqi scholar of Islamic theology and the founder of the Iraqi Center for Diversity, said in comments to The Jerusalem Post.
According to some media outlets, including Iran International, thousands of Iraqi militiamen have already crossed into Iran to help Tehran quell the ongoing protests. Sheikh Al-Tamimi says, “There is no interest or justification for the Iraqi government to send reserve forces to Tehran.” He adds that he does not rule out that some Shiite militants who are directly connected to, financed by, and trained by Iran “could have gone, but it would have been on a voluntary basis and certainly not sanctioned by the Iraqi state.”
These voluntary missions, argues Sheikh Al-Tamimi, “are both secondary and marginalized,” without significant contribution. Drawing from a previous occasion when various Shiite factions sent volunteers to support Hezbollah in its war with Israel after October 7, Sheikh Al-Tamimi says, “We saw a considerable number of militants make their way to Lebanon to fight alongside Hezbollah. But Hezbollah did not trust their military capabilities, and they were not prepared for their eventual return to Iraq.” However, he continues, “a small number of fighters must have gone, but I repeat that their engagement would not have been sanctioned by the Iraqi government.”
These volunteers are likely to be deployed in regions inhabited by minorities such as Ahwaz, home to the Ahwazi Arabs—an oppressed ethnic and linguistic minority in Iran, with a strong sense of Sunni Arab identity—or they will be deployed in the Kurdish region of Iran.
He continues: “Theoretically, I doubt that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will open its territories for Iraqi militias to carry out armed duties; it is very doubtful.” He adds: “Let’s not forget that the Basij, a paramilitary branch of the IRGC, has around 8 million members.” The Basij permeated many layers of Iranian society. It has cells all over Iran and is present in every university and government institution, including health care, law enforcement, and other social and cultural institutions. Its main role is to maintain domestic security—from enforcing social norms and dress codes to suppressing dissent and protests.
Sheikh Ghaith Al-Tamimi, a prominent Iraqi scholar of Islamic theology and the founder of the Iraqi Center for Diversity. (Credit: COURTESY SHEIKH GHAITH AL-TAMIMI)
“Add to this the IRGC and various intelligence agencies,” says Al-Tamimi. “I doubt a ruthless police state like Iran would need additional reinforcements from Baghdad.”
Iran is a theocratic and tyrannical regime that has an “iron grip on its people.” “I doubt that the protesters will be able to overthrow the rule of the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei,” says Sheikh Al-Tamimi. “The protesters managed to expose and discredit the government’s legitimacy to rule. But I tell you: without outside intervention—specifically the United States—it is challenging, if not impossible, to topple Khamenei.”
Iraqis overwhelmingly favor the overthrow of the Khamenei regime
He explains that the overthrow of Khamenei would be welcomed by a large majority of Iraqis. However, he says, we cannot rule out genuine concerns about Khamenei’s future and his impact on Iraq and wider regional security.
However, there is also another Iraq: an Iraq that is faithfully loyal to the Ayatollahs. Powerful and influential Shiite political and paramilitary groups—such as the armed Badr Organization faction and the Iranian-backed Fatah Coalition in the Iraqi parliament—have benefited from immense Iranian investment in training and funding. These proxies maintain close ties with Tehran and cooperate with Iran’s men inside Iraq.
One of those men is Amir Mousavi, a former Iranian defense official who enjoys close ties to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Mousavi has been Tehran’s central man in Baghdad, at least since the assassination of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020 by the Americans.
Mousavi became something of a political analyst celebrity whose fame extended beyond the borders of Iraq and Iran. He has been a fixture on major Arabic-language news channels that are often aligned with Iran and Turkey, such as Al Jazeera, Al Mayadeen, and Al Alam.
Mousavi’s fluency in Arabic and his deep hatred of Israel played a major role in his rise as a well-known figure in the regional media. With the ongoing protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mousavi is regularly invited to speak on both Iraqi and regional stations.
As for the protests, he portrays them as “upheaval,” led by “agitators” and engineered by “foreign state actors.” In a recent interview with Iraqi television, he referred to protesters as “terrorists” who work with “foreign infiltrators” who are “trained and equipped with maps and lists of figures who have been ordered to kill.” He claimed that behind these infiltrators are “specifically three neighboring countries,” which the authorities in Tehran know about and “will target soon.”
In addition, he claims that all indications support that these three countries are behind the financing, training, and facilitation of “these dark forces” that enter Iran, causing instability and terrorism. He says Tehran wants these countries to “come clean, apologize, and cooperate with Tehran to reveal the location of the cells they implanted in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Mousavi refused to name the three countries, declaring that “Tehran wants to give them a chance to come clean.” One of those countries is possibly the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq (the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG), which the IRGC has a long record of targeting with ballistic missiles, claiming to have hit a “Mossad espionage ring,” among other allegations. Other candidates could be Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and possibly Israel.
Suzan Quitaz is a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and researcher on Middle East affairs. She is an Israel-based journalist and podcast presenter for an Arabic and English series, “Exposing the Lies – The Voice of Truth from the Middle East,” at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. She previously worked as a field producer and reporter at a number of Qatari media outlets.