US-Iraq security agreements keep failing: The PMF, dual loyalty, and Baghdad’s sovereignty deficit
Shafaq News
On March 26, Iraq and the United States announced the formation of a High Joint Coordination Committee, committing both governments —in the official language of the Joint Operations Command— to "intensify cooperation to prevent terrorist attacks, ensure Iraqi territory is not used as a launching point for aggression, and keep Iraq outside the scope of the ongoing military conflict in the region, with full respect for its sovereignty."
Within hours, US airstrikes struck Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) positions in Wasit province —and before the night was over, Iraqi armed factions hit US facilities across Iraq, including in Baghdad and Erbil. More strikes from both sides followed the next morning.
The speed of the collapse reflected a structural problem that predates the current conflict and has outlasted every bilateral security framework Baghdad and Washington have signed since 2003: the Iraqi state does not exercise full authority over all armed actors operating under its nominal command, and Washington has never accepted the distinction Baghdad insists upon —that the PMF is a state institution entitled to sovereign protection, not an Iranian proxy subject to military targeting.
The current US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28, has also forced this problem into full view.
Read more: Iraq’s neutrality fades: Formal war involvement draws closer?
A Framework Built On Shifting Ground
The new committee is the latest iteration of a security architecture rooted in the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) and the Status of Forces Agreement (SFO) —treaties that established the terms of US military presence in Iraq and have governed bilateral cooperation ever since. Successive arrangements followed: the July 2021 Strategic Dialogue, a Higher Military Commission formed in 2023–2024, and, most recently, a new bilateral security agreement proposed by Iraq in 2025 —confirmed publicly by Iraqi Defence Minister Thabet Al-Abbasi, who described it as establishing "a lasting security partnership and deep intelligence cooperation." As of late March 2026, the proposal remains under review by the Trump administration, with no official US confirmation of receipt or negotiation.
Each of these frameworks rested on the same core assumption: that Baghdad, as the sovereign authority, could enforce the terms to which it was agreeing, but encountered the same obstacle.
The PMF, known in Arabic as Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, sits at the center of that obstacle. Formed in 2014 following the fall of Mosul and a religious decree by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani calling on Iraqis to defend their country against ISIS, the force was formally incorporated into the Iraqi Armed Forces by parliamentary law in 2016 and placed under the authority of the prime minister as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. With approximately 165,000 fighters, it is one of the largest components of Iraq's security architecture —and the most politically contested.
The Loyalty That No Law Has Resolved
Many of the PMF's most powerful brigades —grouped under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, most notably Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba, both designated as terrorist organizations and sanctioned by the United States— operate under the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, the principle of clerical guardianship that places ultimate political and religious authority in the hands of Iran's supreme leader. Several factions have declared their allegiance publicly.
It is a dual loyalty that no prime ministerial decree, parliamentary law, or bilateral security framework has managed to dissolve. A reform bill introduced in March 2025 —specifically designed to consolidate command authority over the PMF under the prime minister and reduce the force's exposure to external influence— failed to pass. The political coalition required to enact it does not exist: the factions whose external loyalties the bill sought to curtail hold enough parliamentary weight to prevent their own reform.
Ahmed Youssef, a political analyst, told Shafaq News that the involvement of armed factions in the current conflict "has created a reality outside the state's authority —one that reflects neither government policy nor public interest." That reality, he said, predates the current war.
Read more: Iran–US talks and future of Iraqi armed factions: Sovereignty vs. Resistance
Al-Sudani's Diminishing Margin
Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has maintained Iraq's neutrality position with consistency under conditions that would strain any government. Airstrikes on PMF positions —condemned by al-Sudani as "systematic aggression"— have hit facilities across at least seven provinces since February 28, killing close to 170 fighters by late March according to Iraqi health authorities and PMF statements. Simultaneously, the US chargé d'affaires and Iranian ambassador were summoned to the foreign ministry, a formal complaint was filed with the UN Security Council, and al-Sudani reiterated that decisions of war and peace belong exclusively to the Iraqi state.
None of it altered the trajectory. Iran-aligned factions continued strikes on US-linked targets across Iraq —including a drone attack on Baghdad International Airport the same night the coordination committee was announced. The pattern is one of continuous exchange between two armed actors operating inside Iraqi territory, with the state registering objections it cannot enforce.
The fracture within Iraq's political landscape sharpens the picture. Hussein al-Sheehani, a member of the Sadiqoon bloc— the political wing of Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, one of the most powerful Iran-aligned PMF factions— called for restraint while warning that US strikes represent a "serious escalation" capable of triggering responses beyond control.
Speaking to Shafaq News, Al-Sheehani acknowledged the pressure on factions, pointing out that past experience had shown “a consistent pattern of the United States acting unilaterally and outside agreed rules of engagement.” Even so, “factions must exercise self-restraint…patience and deference to the state remain the better course to keep Iraq from being pulled into a regional conflict.”
Protecting Iraqi sovereignty, he added, must be a shared priority, and dialogue the only viable path through the current period.
The tension in that statement captures al-Sudani's daily reality: a faction that sits inside his political coalition, draws a state salary, and answers to a foreign clerical authority simultaneously reserves the right to act outside his authority.
Hassan Fad'am of the Shiite Wisdom Movement (Al-Hikma) —a faction closer to al-Sudani's centrist position —went further, rejecting neutrality and arguing that Iraq should align politically with Iran.
“Since the war on Iran began, Iraq had played an essential role through diplomatic efforts to prevent the country from being drawn into the conflict, but unfortunately, we came under bombardment, and our security forces suffered casualties," he told Shafaq News.
“We side with the wronged party, which is our neighbor Iran, and we must stand with it politically, in the media, and on humanitarian grounds —and that is the role Iraq has played since the battle began."
That voice does not come from the resistance factions. It comes from the moderate wing of Iraq's Shiite political establishment, and it illustrates precisely how narrow the coalition available to the caretaker premier actually is.
What The Committee Cannot Fix
The High Joint Coordination Committee retains value as a diplomatic channel, a mechanism for communicating red lines, registering objections, and preserving the formal architecture of the bilateral relationship. Counterterrorism cooperation, intelligence sharing, and advisory roles continue. If the broader regional conflict de-escalates, the committee may provide a usable diplomatic off-ramp.
Its limits are structural. Washington does not distinguish between the PMF as a state institution and the PMF as an Iran-aligned network when selecting targets. Baghdad insists on that distinction when filing protests. The agreement requires both parties to act based on Iraqi sovereignty —a sovereignty that one party treats as incomplete and the other cannot fully exercise.
That is the contradiction the committee was built to manage not to resolve.
Every security framework between Baghdad and Washington has eventually run into that wall. The more consequential measure of this conflict, whenever it ends, will be whether the wall itself is any closer to being addressed. The failed reform bill, the unresolved factions, the publicly declared external loyalties: none of that has changed. Until it does, the next framework will face the same fate as every previous one.
Read more: Why Iraq’s PMF disarmament is a different battle from Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.
