Baghdad has no reason to send forces to Iran amid protests, Iraqi scholar tells 'Post'

Baghdad has no reason to send forces to Iran amid protests, Iraqi scholar tells 'Post'

Suzan Quitaz

Sun, January 25, 2026 at 11:41 AM UTC

5 min read

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Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces stand guard at a military base near the Iraqi-Syrian border in Al-Qaim, west of Iraq on January 23, 2026. (photo credit: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)

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According to some media outlets, including Iran International, thousands of Iraqi militiamen have already crossed into Iran to help Tehran suppress the ongoing protests.

“There is no interest or justification for the Iraqi government to send backup forces to Tehran, nor is Iran in need of extra reinforcement from Baghdad,” said Sheikh Ghaith Al-Tamimi, a prominent Iraqi scholar of Islamic theology and the founder of the Iraqi Center for Diversity, 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 suppress the ongoing protests. Sheikh Al-Tamimi says, “There is no interest or justification for the Iraqi government to send backup forces to Tehran.” He adds that he would not rule out that some Shiite militants who are directly connected to, funded by, and trained by Iran “might have gone, but that would have been on a voluntary basis and certainly not sanctioned by the Iraqi state.”

These voluntary missions, Sheikh Al-Tamimi argues, “are both secondary and marginalised,” with no significant contribution. Drawing from a previous occasion when various Shiite factions sent volunteers to support Hezbollah in its war with Israel following Oct. 7, Sheikh Al-Tamimi says, “We saw a considerable number of militants making their way to Lebanon to fight alongside Hezbollah. But Hezbollah did not trust their military capabilities, and they weren’t offered any key roles, leading to their eventual return to Iraq.” However, he continues, “a small number of fighters definitely did go, but I repeat again that their enlistment would not have been sanctioned by the Iraqi government.”

These volunteers would most likely be deployed to minority-inhabited regions such as Ahvaz, home to Ahwazi Arabs—an oppressed ethnic and linguistic minority within Iran, with a strong sense of Arab Sunni identity—or they would be deployed in Iran’s Kurdish region.

He continues: “Theoretically, I doubt that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will open its territories for Iraqi militiamen to carry out armed duties; it’s highly questionable.” He adds: “Let’s not forget that the Basij, a paramilitary branch of the IRGC, has about 8 million members.” The Basij has permeated many layers of Iranian society. It has cells all over Iran and is present in every university and government institution, including healthcare, law enforcement, and other social and cultural institutions. Its main role is to maintain domestic security—from enforcing social norms and dress codes to cracking down on 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 that the IRGC and various intelligence agencies,” Al-Tamimi says. “I doubt a ruthless police state like Iran would be in need of extra reinforcement from Baghdad.”

Iran is a theocratic, tyrannical regime which has “an iron grip on its people.” “I doubt that protesters will be able to topple the rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” Sheikh Al-Tamimi says. “The protesters have managed to expose and discredit the government’s legitimacy to rule. But I tell you: without outside intervention—specifically the USA—it is challenging, if not impossible, to overthrow Khamenei.”

Iraqis largely in favor of toppling Khamenei regime

He explains that toppling Khamenei would be welcomed by an overwhelming majority of Iraqis. Nevertheless, he says, we cannot rule out genuine concerns about the day after Khamenei and its impact on Iraq and broader 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 Badr Organization’s armed faction and the Iran-backed Fatah Coalition in the Iraqi parliament—have benefited from immense Iranian investment in training and funding. These proxies keep 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 has become something of a political analyst celebrity whose fame has expanded beyond the borders of Iraq and Iran. He has been a fixture on major Arab-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 deeply seated hatred of Israel have played a major role in his rise as a well-known figure in regional media. With ongoing protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mousavi is regularly invited to speak on both Iraqi and regional channels.

Regarding the protests, he depicts them as “turbulence,” driven by “agitators” and engineered by “foreign state actors.” In a recent interview with Iraqi television, he referred to protesters as “terrorists” working with “foreign infiltrators” who are “trained and equipped with maps and lists of figures they have been ordered to assassinate.” He claimed that behind these infiltrators are “specifically three neighbouring countries,” which authorities in Tehran know about and “will target soon.”

Furthermore, he claims that all indications support that these three countries are behind the funding, training, and facilitation of “these dark forces” entering Iran, causing instability and terrorism. He says Tehran wants these countries “to come clean, to apologise, and to cooperate with Tehran to expose the location of the cells they implanted within the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Mousavi refused to name the three countries, stating that “Tehran wants to give them a chance to come clean.” One of those countries is possibly Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region (the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG), which the IRGC has a long record of targeting with ballistic missiles, claiming it struck “a Mossad spying ring,” among other allegations. Other candidates could be Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and possibly Israel.

Suzan Quitaz is a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and researcher on Middle Eastern 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 journalist at a number of Qatari media outlets.

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