Iran gathers power in Iraq as US further sidelined
Iran has succeeded in expanding its influence in Iraq by supporting the Shiite paramilitary forces there, a move that the United States has avoided since 2003.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — While the United States has invested trillions of dollars and thousands of lives since 2003 to bring Iraq into its orbit, today it is Iran that appears to have achieved that goal, albeit with far less costs in terms of money and lives, observers and analysts of Iraqi affairs agree.
There appears to be no better demonstration of Iran’s success in having firmly established its hegemony across Iraq than in the current operation to retake the Sunni-dominated province of Salahuddin in central Iraq. The operation to push out Islamic State (IS) militants from Tikrit and its surrounding areas in Salahuddin is being carried out by a ragtag force of Shiite Popular Mobilization Units, the Iraqi army and some local Sunni tribes.
