Order Code RS22323
Updated February 2, 2007
Iran’s Influence in Iraq
Kenneth Katzman
Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Summary
Iran’s influence over the post-Saddam government in Iraq is substantial and
growing because the dominant parties in Iraq have long-standing ties to Tehran. A key
U.S. concern is that Iran, seeking to ensure the political prospects of its proteges, has
expanded support for Shiite militias that are responsible for much of the sectarian
violence. Since December 2006, the Administration has stepped up efforts to reverse
Iranian influence in Iraq, but some see this as an indication that the Administration
intends to confront Iran more broadly. This report will be updated. See CRS Report
RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman.
Background
The significance of the issue of Iranian influence in Iraq derives not only from the
U.S. interest in stabilizing Iraq but also from tensions between the United States and Iran
over Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. Now that the conventional military and
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat from Saddam Hussein has been removed, the
thrust of Iran’s strategy in Iraq has been to perpetuate domination of Iraq’s government
by pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist leaders, as well as to obtain leverage against the United
States to forestall a potential confrontation. Iran sees control of Iraq by friendly Shiite
parties as providing Iran with “strategic depth,” ensuring that Iraq remains pliable and
attentive to Iran’s interests. At the same time, Iran’s aid to Iraqi Shiite parties and their
militias is contributing to sectarian violence that, in addition to causing about 3,000 Iraqi
civilian casualties per month, is threatening the U.S. stabilization effort as well as U.S.
and partner forces in Iraq.
For the first two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iran’s leaders and diplomats
sought to persuade all Iraqi Shiite Islamist factions in Iraq to work together through a
U.S.-led political process, because the number of Shiites in Iraq (about 60% of the
population) virtually ensures Shiite dominance of government. To this extent, Iran’s
goals in Iraq differed little from the main emphasis of U.S. policy in Iraq, which was to
set up a democratic process that reflects majority preferences. Iran’s strategy bore fruit
with victory by a Shiite Islamist bloc (“United Iraqi Alliance”) in the two parliamentary

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elections in 2005. The UIA bloc won 128 of the 275 Assembly seats in the December 15,
2005, election. The UIA includes Iran’s primary Shiite Islamist protégés in Iraq — the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the most pro-Iranian of the
groups, and the Da’wa (Islamic Call) party. Also in the UIA bloc is the faction of
Moqtada Al Sadr, whose ties to Iran are less well developed because his family remained
in Iraq during Saddam’s rule. Most SCIRI leaders spent their years of exile in Iran. Like
his predecessor as Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafari, Nuri al-Maliki is from the Da’wa
Party, although Maliki spent most of his exile in Syria, not Iran.
Iran’s closest and most powerful ally in Iraq is SCIRI’s leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
In October 2006, he successfully pushed for legislation that would allow an early
federation of Shiite provinces in southern Iraq into a large, relatively autonomous region.
Iran supports that concept because a Shiite region would further integrate economically
and politically with Iran. However, that initiative alarmed Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, who fear
that the Shiites will use their new region to control Iraq’s large oil resources, much of
which are concentrated in southern Iraq. The Shiite region has customarily accounted for
about two-thirds of Iraq’s oil exports; the other third is exported from the Kurdish north.
Of greater concern to U.S. officials is the continuing fielding of militias by the major
Shiite groupings. The militias are widely accused of the sectarian violence against Sunnis
that is gripping Iraq, although Iraqi Shiites say they are retaliating for Sunni violence
against Shiites. U.S. officials’ reports say that sectarian violence is now the leading
security problem in Iraq. SCIRI controls a militia called the “Badr Brigades” (now
renamed the “Badr Organization”), which numbers about 20,000. The Badr Brigades
were formed, trained, and equipped by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, politically aligned
with Iran’s hardliners, during the Iran-Iraq war. During that war, Badr guerrillas
conducted forays from Iran into southern Iraq to attack Baath Party officials, although the
Badr forays did not spark broad popular unrest against Saddam Hussein’s regime. Badr
fighters are playing unofficial policing roles in Basra and other Shiite cities, and those
Badr members that have joined the national Iraqi police and military forces are widely
said to retain their loyalties to Badr and SCIRI.
The Badr fighters have purportedly been involved in sectarian killings, although to
perhaps a lesser extent than the other major Shiite militia, the “Mahdi Army” of Moqtada
Al Sadr. The December 6, 2006, Iraq Study Group report says the Mahdi Army might
now number about 60,000 fighters, and the November 2006 “Measuring Stability and
Security in Iraq” report by the Defense Department says the Mahdi Army has replaced Al
Qaeda-Iraq as “the most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian
violence in Iraq.” The Mahdi Army was formed in mid-2003 when the 32-year-old
Moqtada Al Sadr, whose base is generally anti-U.S., sought to forcibly oppose U.S.
forces in Iraq. U.S. military operations put down Mahdi Army uprisings in April 2004
and August 2004 in Sadr City (a Shiite-inhabited slum area of Baghdad), Najaf, and other
Shiite cities. In each case, fighting was ended with compromises under which Mahdi
forces stopped fighting in exchange for amnesty for Sadr himself. From August 2004
until mid-2006, Mahdi fighters patrolled Sadr’s Baghdad political base of “Sadr City” and
parts of other Shiite cities, particularly in Basra, enforcing conformity with Islamic and
traditional behavior norms.
Iran has come to see Moqtada Al Sadr as a growing force in Iraqi politics. He is a
scion of the revered Sadr clan; his great uncle, Mohammad Baqr Al Sadr, was a

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contemporary and ally of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was hung by Saddam
Hussein in 1980. He has a large and dedicated following particularly among lower-class
Iraqi Shiites, some of whom are able to receive medical treatment in Iran under Sadr’s
auspices, and his support has been crucial to the political fortunes of Prime Minister
Maliki. Iran’s strategy thus far apparently has been to build ties to Sadr and coax him
into cooperating with SCIRI and the Da’wa groups, while indulging his requests for
material assistance for his Mahdi Army. However, that Iranian assistance has added to
U.S.-Iran tensions, because, since mid-2006, Mahdi forces have clashed with U.S. forces
in Baghdad and elsewhere on a few occasions and there have been several U.S. military
deaths by bombings in Sadr City. Mahdi assertiveness in Basra has contributed to
occasional violence in that normally quiet city, including the deaths of about 25 British
soldiers in that time frame. Mahdi attacks on a British base near Amara in southern Iraq
in July 2006 contributed to a British decision to abandon the base. On the other hand,
recent reports say that Sadr does not necessarily control hardline commanders in the
Mahdi Army, who have been strengthened by popular Shiite sentiment to exact revenge
against Sunnis, and that some of these extreme Mahdi elements might be behind the
extensive sectarian killings in Baghdad, Diyala, and elsewhere.
Iranian leaders have also cultivated ties to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the 75-
year-old Iranian-born Shiite cleric who is de-facto leader of mainstream Shiite Islamists.
However, Sistani has differed with Iran’s doctrine of direct clerical involvement, and he
has resisted political direction from Iran. Iran’s interest in Sistani might be declining as
Sistani’s influence over Iraqi Shiites has waned. Sistani has called on Shiites not to be
drawn into civil conflict with the Sunnis, but many Iraqi Shiites turning to hard-line
Shiites such as Sadr who are willing to combat Sunnis by any means available.
Assertions of Iranian Support to Armed Groups
Iranian influence in Iraq has added to U.S.-Iran tensions over Iran’s nuclear program
and regional ambitions, such as its aid to Lebanese Hezbollah. U.S. and allied officials
assert that Iran is providing financial and materiel support to the Shiite militias discussed
above, although a few reports say some of the weapons might also be flowing to Sunni
insurgents. In providing support to armed groups, Iran might be seeking to develop a
broad range of options in Iraq that includes sponsoring violence to pressure U.S. and
British forces to leave Iraq, or to bog down the United States militarily and thereby deter
it from action against Iran’s nuclear program. On the other hand, Iran might not
necessarily want attacks on U.S. forces because a U.S. departure from Iraq, if that were
the result, might leave the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad vulnerable to collapse.
Those who believe Iran is proceeding cautiously in Iraq tend to view Iran’s aid to Shiite
militias as a means of increasing its influence over them.
On several occasions over the past year, senior U.S. and allied military officials and
policymakers have asserted that U.S. forces have found Iranian-supplied explosives,
reportedly including highly lethal shaped explosives that can destroy U.S. armor:
! In March 2006, then Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman Peter Pace, and Commander of U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM) Gen. John Abizaid asserted that Iran’s Revolutionary
Guard — particularly its “Qods (Jerusalem) Forces” that conduct

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activities outside Iran in support of Shiite movements — is assisting
armed factions in Iraq with explosives and weapons.
! On August 23, 2006, Brig. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy chief of
operations of the Joint Staff, said the Iranian government is training,
funding, and equipping Shiite militiamen in Iraq. On September 28,
2006, Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner, deputy chief of staff for intelligence of
the Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I), said that the labels on C-4
explosives found with Shiite militiamen in Iraq prove that the explosives
came from Iran. He added that only the Iranian military apparatus
controls access to such military-grade explosives.1
! On September 19, 2006, Gen. Abizaid said that U.S. forces had found
weaponry in Iraq that likely came from Iran, including a dual-warhead
rocket-propelled-grenade RPG-29, as well as Chinese-made rockets. He
added that Lebanese Hezbollah members were conducting training in Iran
and that they could also be training Iraqi Shiite militiamen but that
“[these linkages are] very, very hard to pin down with precision.”2
! There is no firm information on how many representatives of the Iranian
government or its institutions might be in Iraq. However, one press
report says there are 150 Iranian Qods Forces and intelligence personnel
in Iraq.3 In December 2006, U.S. forces arrested two Qods Forces senior
officers in the compound of SCIRI leader Hakim, where they were
allegedly meeting with Badr Brigade leader (and member of parliament)
Hadi al-Amiri; the two were later released under Iraqi government
pressure. In January 2007, another five Iranian agents were arrested in
a liaison office in the Kurdish city of Irbil. Iran and the Kurds say they
were performing legitimate duties.
! On January 31, 2007, the commander of Multinational Corps-Iraq, Lt.
Gen. Ray Odierno, said that the United States had traced back to Iran
serial numbers of weapons captured in Iraq. The armaments included
rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs, and Katyusha rockets.
Some might argue that the U.S. accounts have some inconsistencies. High-explosive
shaped charges are being used primarily by Sunni insurgents against U.S. armor, and far
less so by Shiite militias who generally field light weapons and have not attacked U.S.
forces often, to date. This raises the question of whether or not Iran, as a deliberate
policy, is aiding Sunni insurgent groups as a means of harming U.S. forces, or whether
these explosives are reaching Sunni groups without official Iranian involvement. Other
questions have arisen over the quality of U.S. evidence; a U.S. briefing to detail evidence
1 “Iranian Government Behind Shipping Weapons to Iraq.” American Forces Press Service, Sept.
28, 2006.
2 “New Weapons From Iran Turning Up on Mideast Battlefields: Abizaid.” Agence France
Presse, Sept. 19, 2006.
3 Linzer, Dafna. “Troops Authorized To Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq,” Washington Post,
January 26, 2007.

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of Iranian involvement in Iraq, planned for late January 2007, has been postponed
repeatedly. Others question U.S. assertions that Iran might have helped insurgents
conduct a January 20, 2007, attack on a U.S.-Iraq liaison facility in Karbala, in which five
U.S. soldiers were killed.

Iranian Influence Over Iraqi Political Leaders
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iran has exercised substantial political and
economic influence over and mentorship of the Iraqi government, although some of Iran’s
economic initiatives do not necessarily conflict with the U.S. goal of reconstructing Iraq
and its economy. During exchanges of high-level visits in the summer of 2005, including
a large Iraqi delegation led by interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari in July 2005, Iraqi
officials essentially took responsibility for starting the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and
indirectly blamed Saddam Hussein for ordering the use of chemical weapons against
Iranian forces during that conflict. During a defense ministerial exchange that same
month, the two countries signed military cooperation agreements, as well as agreements
to open diplomatic facilities in Basra and Karbala (two major cities in Iraq’s mostly Shiite
south) to establish and agreements on new transportation and energy links (oil swaps,
provision of cooking fuels and 2 million liters per day of kerosene to Iraqis and future oil
pipeline connections). Iran offered Iraq a $1 billion credit line as well, some of which is
being used to build roads in the Kurdish north and a new airport near Najaf, a key entry
point for Iranian pilgrims visiting the Imam Ali Shrine there. The two have developed a
free trade zone around Basra, and bilateral trade has burgeoned to an estimated $3 billion
per year, as of mid-2006. In a January 28, 2007, interview, Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq,
Hassan Kazemi Qomi (appointed in May 2006), said Iran planned several new initiatives,
including opening Iranian banks in Iraq and providing additional electricity to Iraq
(beyond that already sent through Iraq’s Diyala Province), and he reiterated the offer to
help train and equip Iraqi security forces. Iraqi officials have previously said that any
military cooperation would be limited to border security, landmine removal, and
information sharing.
Some observers say that Iran is moving to shape the policies of Iraq’s government.
Shortly after the Maliki government took office on May 20, 2006, Iran’s Foreign Minister
Manuchehr Mottaki led a high-profile visit to Iraq. During that visit, Iraq supported Iran’s
right to pursue nuclear technology “for peaceful purposes,” while also stating that Iraq
does not want “any of [its] neighbors to have weapons of mass destruction.”4 Maliki
visited Iran during September 13-14, 2006, meeting all major Iranian leaders and signing
memoranda of understanding to facilitate cross border immigration, exchange
intelligence, and expand commerce. During the visit, Maliki said that members of the
Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), who were
based in Iraq during Saddam’s rule and are now confined by U.S.-led forces to a camp
near the Iranian border, would have six months to leave Iraq. In November 2006, Iraq’s
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, visited Iran and met senior leaders.
Some believe Iran’s influence will fade over the long term. Iraq’s post-Saddam
constitution does not establish an Iranian-style theocratic government, and rivalry
between Iraq’s Shiite clerics and those of Iran might increase if Najaf re-emerges as a
4 “Clarification Statement” issued by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. May 29, 2006.

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key center of Shiite Islamic scholarship to rival Qom in Iran. Other experts note that most
Iraqi Shiites generally stayed loyal to the Iraqi regime during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
Although exchanges of prisoners and remains from the Iran-Iraq war are mostly
completed, Iran has not returned the 153 military and civilian aircraft flown to Iran at the
start of the 1991 Gulf War, although it has allowed an Iraqi technical team to assess the
condition of the aircraft (August 2005). On the other hand, territorial issues are mostly
resolved as a result of an October 2000 agreement to abide by the waterway-sharing and
other provisions of their 1975 Algiers Accords. (Iraq abrogated that agreement prior to
its September 1980 invasion of Iran.)
U.S. Responses and Prospects
The Iraq Study Group final report’s first recommendation is that the United States
include Iran (and Syria) in multilateral efforts to stabilize Iraq. Even before the Study
Group report, U.S. officials, eager to try to stabilize Iraq, had tried to engage Iran on the
issue. In December 5, 2005, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad stated that he had
received President Bush’s approval to undertake negotiations with Iranian counterparts
in an effort to enlist Iranian cooperation in Iraq. The United States and Iran confirmed in
March 2006 that they would conduct direct talks on the issue of stabilizing Iraq.
However, U.S. officials opposed Iran’s efforts to expand such discussions to bilateral
U.S.-Iran issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and no talks were held.
The Bush Administration did not endorse the Iraq Study Group recommendation on
engaging Iran as part of a solution in Iraq, and has instead launched several initiatives to
limit Iran’s influence there. In an interview with journalists on December 14, 2006,
Secretary of State Rice said that the United States would not likely bargain with Iran —
such as electing not to try to sanction Iran for its nuclear program advancement — to
obtain its assistance in stabilizing Iraq.5 In his January 10, 2006, speech announcing a
U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad, President Bush stated that the United States would
“interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria...[and would] seek out and destroy the
networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.” In that
speech, he also announced deployment of an additional aircraft carrier group to the
Persian Gulf and extended deployment of Patriot anti-missile batteries reportedly
stationed in Kuwait and Qatar — moves that most experts say are intended to demonstrate
U.S. capabilities to counter Iran, if necessary. Other reports say the Administration plans
new air patrols along the Iran-Iraq border. President Bush, in a January 31, 2007, press
interview, reportedly confirmed prior reports that he had authorized U.S. forces in Iraq
to treat Iranian agents in Iraq as combatants if they are observed actively assisting armed
elements in Iraq. Some Members and outside experts have taken the view that the
Administration moves suggest planning for major military action against Iran, and several
resolutions (H.Con.Res 33, H.J.Res. 14, and H.R. 770) and Member statements say that
the President should seek authorization from Congress for military action against Iran.
The Administration asserts that its policy thrust remains multilateral diplomacy and
sanctions to isolate Iran and try to change its behavior, although some experts see
potential for miscalculation that could escalate into larger scale U.S.-Iran conflict.

5 Kessler, Glenn. “Rice Rejects Overture to Iran and Syria,” Washington Post, Dec. 15, 2006.

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