By Dr. Pshtiwan Faraj | Kurdish Policy Analysis

Nechirvan Barzani says Iranian officials have offered to help Baghdad bring weapons under state authority. If Tehran is serious, the statement could signal a major recalibration of Iran’s strategy in Iraq.

Nechirvan Barzani says Iran is ready to help Baghdad bring weapons under state control. The message could signal a major shift in Tehran’s approach to Iraq’s armed factions.

Tehran’s Message to Baghdad: Are Iran’s Allies Ready to Put Their Weapons Under State Control?

Tehran appears to be sending Baghdad a message with potentially enormous consequences: weapons in Iraq should ultimately be controlled by the state. Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said Wednesday that Iranian officials had formally conveyed Tehran’s readiness to assist the Iraqi government in bringing weapons under state authority and had stressed that Iraq’s stability serves Iran’s interests. The statement is striking not because the principle of state control over arms is new, but because of who Barzani says delivered the message. If Tehran is genuinely prepared to help Baghdad enforce state authority over armed groups, the implications could reach directly into the structure of Iraq’s powerful Iran-aligned factions.

Barzani said weapons must remain under the control of the state and operate according to the orders of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the prime minister. He added that Iranian officials responsible for Iraqi affairs had told him during his recent visit to Tehran that Iran was prepared to assist the Iraqi prime minister in addressing the question of weapons control. That puts a potentially transformative proposition on the table: could Iran, which has maintained deep relationships with some of Iraq’s most powerful armed factions, now be willing to support Baghdad in consolidating the state's monopoly over force?

The answer matters because Iraq's central political problem is no longer simply whether armed groups exist. It is whether the Iraqi state can establish a clear hierarchy of authority over the country's fragmented security architecture. The Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi, were formally incorporated into Iraq's security institutions after the fight against ISIS, but several factions retain substantial political, military and organizational autonomy. The result is a system in which armed power can simultaneously be part of the state and remain influenced by actors whose strategic loyalties extend beyond Baghdad.

That ambiguity has always been one of the defining vulnerabilities of the Iraqi state.

For Tehran, however, the equation may be changing.

Iran has spent decades building political, economic and security relationships across Iraq. Its influence is not confined to armed groups; it extends into political parties, religious networks, trade, energy, border commerce and social relationships. Iraq has consequently become one of the most important pillars of Iran's regional strategy. But influence becomes more valuable when the state itself remains stable. A fragmented Iraq may provide Tehran with leverage, but a stable Iraq provides something Iran increasingly needs: a predictable neighbor, major trading partner and energy market that is not constantly at risk of becoming the battlefield of another regional confrontation.

That may explain the significance of the message attributed to Iranian officials.

Barzani said Iranian officials told him that Iraq's stability directly serves Iranian interests, pointing specifically to the scale of bilateral trade and Iran's exports of electricity and gas to Iraq. The economic argument is critical. Iran does not engage with Iraq solely through security calculations; the two countries are deeply interconnected economically, and any prolonged political or military destabilization inside Iraq threatens commercial relationships that benefit both sides.

For Tehran, therefore, Iraqi stability is not charity.

It is strategy.

The more interesting question is whether that strategic calculation has reached the point where Tehran believes that stronger Iraqi state institutions are preferable to maintaining maximum influence through armed networks.

That would represent a significant shift.

Iran's regional strategy has historically relied heavily on relationships with non-state and hybrid armed actors. These networks have provided Tehran with strategic depth, deterrence and the ability to project influence without relying exclusively on conventional state institutions. In Iraq, the model has been particularly successful because Iran developed relationships with factions that became deeply embedded in the country's political and security structures.

But the regional environment in 2026 is very different from the environment in which that architecture was built.

The post-ISIS security order has matured. Iraq's political system has become more consolidated. Baghdad has increasingly sought to position itself as an actor capable of balancing competing regional interests rather than simply serving as a theater for them. At the same time, the risks of Iraq becoming entangled in wider Iran-related conflicts have grown considerably.

For Baghdad, the calculation is straightforward: Iraq cannot claim full sovereignty if armed actors can independently determine when and how Iraqi territory is used for regional confrontation.

For Tehran, the calculation may now be evolving toward a similarly pragmatic conclusion: Iran's interests may be better protected by a stable Iraqi state than by uncontrolled escalation involving Iraqi armed factions.

That does not mean Iran is abandoning its allies.

Far from it.

The more plausible possibility is that Tehran is looking for a new model of influence—one in which its political and strategic relationships survive even as armed factions become more tightly integrated into formal state structures. Iran does not necessarily need its allies to operate outside the state to retain influence over them. If those networks remain politically powerful, economically connected and institutionally embedded, Tehran could potentially preserve substantial leverage without openly opposing Baghdad's sovereignty.

This is where the Hashd question becomes particularly important.

The Hashd al-Shaabi is not a single organization with a single political identity. It is a broad institutional framework containing multiple factions with different histories, interests and relationships. Some elements are closely aligned with Iran, while others have more explicitly Iraqi or nationalist orientations. Any attempt to reorganize the structure therefore risks becoming a much larger political struggle over command, financing, weapons, appointments and political representation.

If Tehran genuinely supports state control, Baghdad could eventually use that position to push for reforms within the Hashd.

But what would “state control” actually mean?

Would it mean that every weapon is stored under centralized state authority?

Would it mean that all armed factions must accept operational orders from the prime minister?

Would commanders lose the ability to independently deploy forces?

Would military and intelligence structures have to be reorganized?

Would political parties be prohibited from maintaining parallel armed capabilities?

Those questions are far more difficult than the principle itself.

And this is precisely why Barzani's statement deserves attention.

The Kurdish leadership has long emphasized the importance of constitutional institutions and state authority in Iraq. For Erbil, a stronger Iraqi state can be beneficial if it means predictable institutions, constitutional enforcement and reduced space for arbitrary military pressure. But Kurdish policymakers are also likely to watch carefully how Baghdad defines “state control,” because Iraq's security architecture includes the Peshmerga as well as federal forces and the Hashd.

A campaign to establish a genuine monopoly over weapons could therefore have consequences far beyond the Shiite armed factions.

It could reopen fundamental questions about federalism and the division of security authority between Baghdad and Erbil.

The Peshmerga issue is particularly sensitive. The Kurdistan Region maintains its own security and military institutions within Iraq's constitutional framework, while successive governments in Baghdad have sought greater coordination and integration. If Baghdad begins seriously pursuing a national doctrine of centralized weapons control, the Kurdish leadership will inevitably ask whether the policy is designed to eliminate unconstitutional armed autonomy or whether it will become another instrument for centralizing power.

That distinction will matter enormously.

A legitimate Iraqi state monopoly over force should not mean political domination by Baghdad. It should mean that constitutional institutions—not individual parties, factions or foreign powers—determine the use of armed force. If that principle is applied selectively, it will deepen rather than resolve Iraq's security problem.

There is another reason Tehran's reported position matters: Iran may be trying to prevent Iraq from becoming the next front in a wider regional confrontation.

Iraq's geography makes it particularly vulnerable. It sits between Iran and the Arab Gulf, borders Turkey and Syria, and hosts both Iranian-linked actors and international military interests. Any escalation between Iran and its adversaries can therefore rapidly spill into Iraqi territory.

For Baghdad, this creates a permanent sovereignty dilemma.

For Tehran, it creates a strategic dilemma of its own. Iranian-linked armed groups operating in Iraq can provide deterrence and pressure, but their independent actions can also generate political backlash against Iran and threaten the economic and diplomatic relationship Tehran has painstakingly built with Baghdad.

At some point, the costs of uncontrolled armed autonomy can begin to outweigh its strategic benefits.

Perhaps that point is approaching.

Barzani's statement should therefore be read not as proof that Iran has suddenly abandoned its longstanding strategy in Iraq, but as evidence that Tehran may be reconsidering how that strategy should operate in a more unstable regional environment.

The most important test will be what happens when Baghdad's ambitions collide with the interests of powerful armed factions.

If the Iraqi government moves to restructure the Hashd's command system, will Tehran support the government?

If Baghdad insists that no armed group can independently launch operations from Iraqi territory, will Iranian officials back that position?

If Iraqi authorities attempt to restrict weapons outside formal military command structures, will Iran encourage compliance?

Those are the questions that will determine whether Tehran's message represents a genuine strategic recalibration or simply diplomatic language designed to reassure Baghdad.

There is also a potentially important economic dimension.

Iran's electricity and gas exports to Iraq have become deeply intertwined with Iraq's energy security. Baghdad wants to reduce its dependence on Iranian energy over the long term, while Tehran benefits from maintaining access to the Iraqi market. Stability is therefore commercially valuable to both sides. A major deterioration in Iraqi security could threaten infrastructure, trade routes, energy payments and cross-border commerce.

This gives Tehran an additional reason to support political stability.

The message from Tehran, as described by Barzani, may ultimately be less ideological than pragmatic.

Iran may be calculating that its influence in Iraq is now strong enough that it does not need instability to preserve it.

That would be a major strategic evolution.

The old model relied heavily on networks that could operate alongside or beyond the formal state. The emerging model could instead seek to preserve influence through political institutions, economic relationships and state-compatible security structures. If that transition occurs, Iran could remain influential while simultaneously allowing Baghdad to claim greater sovereignty.

For Iraq, however, the opportunity comes with a warning.

A state monopoly over force cannot be created through speeches alone. It requires political consensus, institutional reform, transparent command structures, parliamentary oversight and a credible agreement over the role of armed organizations. Most importantly, it requires the state to demonstrate that its authority applies equally to all political actors.

That is the real challenge.

Tehran may now be telling Baghdad that weapons belong in the hands of the state. But the decisive question is not whether Iran supports the principle. It is whether Tehran is prepared to use its influence when enforcing that principle threatens the power of its own allies.

If the answer is yes, Iraq could be approaching one of the most consequential security reorganizations since the defeat of ISIS. If the answer is no, Barzani's message will remain what it is today: a powerful statement, but not yet a transformation of Iraq's balance of power. And Baghdad will be watching closely.

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