US sees chance to strip Hezbollah of arms by choking Iran’s cash flow

After a series of military and diplomatic setbacks, Tehran may hope their allies next door can preserve its influence via the ballotbox and protect a decades-old Iranian political investment in its neighbor.

Confident that US attacks "obliterated" Iranian nuclear sites in June amidst an Israeli military campaign, US President Donald Trump may be ignoring the potential threat Iran poses in Iraq according to historian Dr Shahram Kholdi.

“Iraq may become, in a very odd way, the Achilles heel of the Trump administration,” he told Eye for Iran.

Kholdi warned Tehran’s reconfigured influence could quietly undermine US gains against Iran in the region, adding that steering its militias into politics risks “recreating the Islamic Republic light version in Iraq, 2.0, that operates through bureaucracy rather than arms.”

The shift comes as Washington issues one of its strongest warnings yet, saying it will not recognize Iraq’s next government if any ministries are handed to armed factions linked to the Islamic Republic, a source in Iraq’s Kurdistan region told Iran International on Friday.

In a recent call with Iraq’s defense minister reported by Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth cautioned any interference by armed factions to unspecified future US military operations would provoke a sharp American response.

The minister, according to the report, described it as “a final notice,” reflecting US concern that Iran’s allies could use Iraq’s elections to entrench themselves in state institutions.

For Tehran, encouraging its proxies to enter politics provides a way to adapt without relinquishing its arms.

The Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella of Shi'ite militias funded through Iraq’s state budget, command vast patronage networks that already blur the line between governance and coercion. Bringing those networks formally into Iraq’s political system could allow Iran to project stability while maintaining influence behind the scenes.

“Iran has been severely weakened in the wake of the 12-day war,” said Jay Solomon, a journalist and author of The Iran Wars.

“What we see is an effort to maintain their proxies and stay below the radar but rebuild.” The approach, described by Solomon, reflects a shift from confrontation to consolidation, using political channels to preserve influence while avoiding direct conflict with the United States.

That calculation, according to Alex Vatanka, Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, shows how Iran’s leadership has learned to work within new limits.

“They want to rebuild as much as they can within limits. They probably have a much better sense of their limitations today than they did before this summer. But again, they do not want to have that open fight, certainly not on Iraqi soil.”

Two decades after the US invasion of Iraq, Washington faces a familiar dilemma: whether to tolerate a fragile partner shaped by Tehran’s influence or confront a more sophisticated phase of Iranian power consolidation.

Iran’s recalibration in Iraq, analysts on Eye for Iran said, is less a retreat than a pause for recovery, a reminder that even under pressure its power lies not in confrontation but in adaptation.

You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on a podcast platform of your choosing.

Iran envoy for President Donald Trump from 2020 to 2021 Elliott Abrams and Ambassador Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to Republican and Democratic administrations, are veterans of decades of US diplomacy with long records in the fraught region.

Both see the Islamic Republic as threat to US national security, the country's military presence in the Middle East and the security of its Arab partners and Israel.

The first direct blows between Israel and Iran last year transformed their fight from one in the shadows and via Iran's armed allies like Hezbollah, they said, into a face-to-face showdown culminating in a June war which dealt Tehran punishing blows.

A ceasefire enforced by Trump after US strikes hit three key Iranian nuclear sites is likely to hold for the foreseeable future, they predicted.

In a panel moderated by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Iran International's head of Digital, they said a weakened Tehran is salving its wounds and focusing on its internal grip while Israel relishes calm after a Gaza ceasefire mediated by President Trump.

"Lacking air defenses, (the Iranians) know that a great deal more damage can be done by Israel, and I don't think the Israelis are looking for it right now either," Abrams said. "They've having gotten the hostages back from Gaza. They need to let their military rest, rebuild, rearm."

Israeli strikes likely damaged Iran's air defense infrastructure. Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said this week Tehran had rebuilt its missile power beyond pre-war levels and that it seeks peace through diplomacy, but Iranians must not fear war.

"I would be quite surprised actually to see war with one exception, Abrams added. "If the regime in Tehran decides we must quickly, as quickly as possible, rebuild the nuclear program, then they're going to get hit again."

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons but Israel and Western countries doubt its intentions. Trump seeks to resume talks halted by the June conflict but Tehran rejects US demands it negotiate over its missiles or support for armed regional allies.

"The fact is, Iran has no air defense today," Ross said. "If they were to rush for a nuclear weapon right now, that would invite either an Israeli response or an American one, and I'm quite certain that the Iranian leadership knows better than that."

Ross served as director of the policy planning staff of the US State Department under President George H.W. Bush, helping guide diplomacy as perennial US adversary the Soviet Union unraveled and toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

"Right now where we are with the regime, talk tough, talk bravely, but recognize the reality is," he added. "The last thing you need is another fight with the Israelis, and you need even less of one with the United States."

Obliterated, exaggerated

US attacks on June 22 hit the Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan nuclear sites in raids Trump has repeatedly said "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program.

While he asserted Tehran is now focused on survival and not resuming its activities, Trump has pledged to attack again if it does.

Iranian officials this week vowed to build the program back stronger than before.

The head of UN nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi said on Friday that Tehran still possesses enriched uranium sufficient, should Iran choose and be able to enrich it further, to make several nuclear weapons.

Both former senior officials said that while the US and Israelis strikes had dealt Iran significant setbacks, Trump was dealing in hyperbole.

"It's premature. It's exaggerated," Abrams said. "Meaning, there is something there. He's just making too much of it."

"It's a real change. And I think Trump is right to draw attention to that," Abrams said. "To go further and say, you know, it's the end of conflict and peace in our time, no that goes too far. The regime is still there. Their military is still powerful. They have a dangerous ballistic missile program."

Abrams, a fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, supports robust US engagement in the region and the encouragement of democratic transitions.

A neoconservative, he was a prominent advocate of preemptive military action against Iraq during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Ross said Trump's military intervention marked an important paradigm shift, transmitting to the region that the United States would check Iranian influence.

"What he did is he signaled, 'you don't have impunity any longer.' Now that was really important for the region, because it said, okay, we really don't have to be so afraid of the Iranians anymore."

Ross is fellow at Washington DC thinktank the Washington Institute and served as a presidential aide in unsuccessful bids by Barack Obama to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He has advocated an active and multi-pronged US engagement in the Mideast and the world not limited to ideological or military approaches and co-founded the advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran in 2008.

"This is a regime that is focused on survival," Ross asserted. "It always has been, but that's the first priority. It feels it can manage and sustain control, which is another reason why they're not looking for trouble on the outside right now, because that could actually endanger them more on the inside."

The message was delivered to Iraqi officials as political negotiations over the formation of a new cabinet intensified ahead of the November 11 parliamentary elections, the source said.

“If any ministry is given to militias affiliated with Iran, the United States will refuse to recognize the government.”

Disputes over presidency and premiership

Responding to comments by some Sunni leaders about the presidency, the source said Shiite and Kurdish blocs had already agreed that the post would go to the Kurds, with Tehran also approving the arrangement. However, he said the possibility of appointing a Sunni figure as prime minister “would raise concern in Tehran.”

All Shiite factions, according to the source, oppose another term for Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister, though Mark Safaya, US President Donald Trump’s representative for Iraq, “has a personal relationship with Sudani and may influence the process.”

Unlike in previous election cycles, the source added, the Islamic Republic “no longer holds the same sway” in deciding Iraq’s leadership. “This time, the United States and European countries are far more determined to shape the outcome.”

Election dynamics and foreign pressure

Reuters reported on November 4 that Sudani has entered the campaign with growing public support, seeking to portray himself as capable of maintaining balanced ties with both Washington and Tehran. The 55-year-old prime minister has focused his campaign on improving public services and hopes to secure the largest bloc in parliament.

As the country moves toward the vote, Sudani’s government faces mounting US pressure to curb Iran-backed militias.

Sudani has said previously that disarming these militias would be impossible as long as the US-led coalition remains in Iraq.

Iran supports Iraqi groups through financing, training, and arms, primarily focusing on Shia militias that are often integrated into the official Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). This support helps groups like the Badr Organization and Kata'ib Hezbollah exert military and political influence, though some factions like Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba have focused more on military operations. The support allows Iran to pursue its regional objectives, gain influence, and destabilize Iraqi politics while coordinating attacks against US forces.

“Iran has been asking if the sanctions could be lifted. Iran has got very heavy US sanctions, and it makes it really hard for them to do what they'd like to be able to do. And I'm open to hearing that, and we'll see what happens, but I would be open to it,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said cooperation between the two countries was impossible as long as Washington continued to support Israel, maintain military bases, and interfere in the Middle East.

“As long as America supports the Zionist regime and interferes in the region, cooperation with it is neither rational nor possible,” Khamenei said on Monday.

Trump also said that the United States directed Israel’s first strike on Iran during the June conflict. “Israel attacked first. That attack was very, very powerful. I was very much in charge of that,” Trump told reporters late on Thursday.

“When Israel attacked Iran first, that was a great day for Israel because that attack did more damage than the rest of them put together.”

After taking office for his second term in January, Trump reimposed his maximum pressure campaign on Iran, a policy aimed at preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. In June, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites, further straining ties between the two countries.

The two sides held five rounds of nuclear talks before a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Negotiations have since stalled over uranium enrichment, with Western powers insisting Iran end enrichment on its own soil, a demand Tehran has rejected.

Last month, Khamenei described negotiations with the United States as “useless and harmful” and declared any talks with Washington forbidden. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also said no direct dialogue had taken place, adding that Tehran would discuss only nuclear matters and would never negotiate on regional issues.

The war between Israel and the Islamic Republic had lasted twelve days: missiles tracing parabolas over cities, generals vowing annihilation, state television baptizing destruction as victory.

Yet what reached me that night was not the language of battle but of exhaustion.

A mother whispered from Tehran: “We hear bombs every night. We have no quarrel with anyone.” A caller from Kermanshah, his voice trembling: “If Israel were our enemy, it would bomb the people of Iran. It doesn’t. Our enemy is here, in our own country.”

Those voices said what no Iranian newspaper dares print: this was not their war. It was the government’s.

The Dutch-based research institute GAMAAN, led by Iranian political scientist Ammar Maleki, has now measured what those voices intuited in a report released on Wednesday.

A crack in the wall

In its latest nationwide survey, 63% of Iranians described the recent Iran–Israel conflict as a war of the state, not of the people.

For the first time since 1979, data quantify an open rupture between ruler and ruled.

44% of respondents said Tehran instigated the war; only 16% believed it achieved anything. Even in a confrontation marketed as “resistance,” the public saw defeat.

Asked whom they blamed more—their own government or Israel—they chose their government by almost two to one.

These are not the cries of an enemy nation. They are the lucid admissions of a society that has stopped believing in its revolution.

The collapse of faith

For four decades, the Islamic Republic has thrived on an emotional economy of fear and sacrifice. “War is a blessing,” Ayatollah Khomeini once declared, and the state built an empire of endurance around that creed.

Martyrdom became its moral currency; hostility, its substitute for legitimacy.

But the GAMAAN figures reveal that the spell is broken. Nearly 70% of Iranians want the government to abandon its “Death to Israel” slogan. 62% favor direct negotiations with the United States. Nearly half want nuclear escalation to end. In a society long taught that compromise is betrayal, such pragmatism is radical.

Even religion—the last reservoir of the Islamic Republic’s sanctity—is ebbing.

Only 40% of Iranians now consider faith important in their lives; 57% say it is not. For a theocracy, that is not merely erosion. It is an existential reckoning.

The voices beneath the silence

As the program went on, the conversation widened. A war veteran from Golestan said he had fought eight years against Iraq, only to discover that “our real enemy was at home.”

Callers understood what the Islamic Republic cannot admit: that foreign hostility sustains domestic repression. A government unable to deliver dignity must deliver enemies instead.

A nation turning inward

If the 1979 revolution was born from a hunger for purity, the quiet revolution unfolding now is born from a hunger for normalcy.

Iranians want what most citizens of the world take for granted—work, safety, connection, a normal life. They are not turning West out of ideology but out of fatigue.

The same survey finds that more Iranians view the United States favorably (53%) than Russia or China, Tehran's chosen patrons.

After forty-five years of anti-Western indoctrination, that reversal is historic. What began as disillusionment has become a civilizational shift: a people disentangling their national identity from the myths that have imprisoned it.

The most dangerous peace

Authoritarian systems can survive rebellion, even sanctions. What they cannot endure is indifference. The most lethal threat to a system built on conflict is a population that no longer wishes to fight.

Today’s Iran is precisely that: a country where the government wages war while the nation quietly insists on peace.

The missiles may have ceased after twelve days, but the deeper conflict—between state ideology and what people actually want—continues.

And if the numbers are to be believed, the people are prevailing. Not with slogans or arms, but with fatigue, clarity and the unyielding will to live.

I ended the program that night by thanking everyone for their participation and slowly walked away from my studio thinking: There is still hope for my people.