See how much NATO countries spend on defense, and how that has changed
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Trump embraces NATO security alliance after years of attacks
“I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a rip-off, and we’re here to help them,” Trump said. The U.S. president was speaking at a NATO summit tailor-made to please him. It was an about-face from the president’s first term, when he regularly shared his reluctance to defend Europe. The gathering in this Dutch coastal city was a measure of how much Trump has changed world affairs after his reelection, a senior NATO official said.. A declaration agreed to by NATO’s 32 leaders. made little mention of Ukraine and did not reference a war there, one of the. many concerns Trump has over the traditional transatlantic alliance. During Trump’s first. term, many assumed it was a parenthesis, and believed it was back forever when. Biden was elected, the official said, adding: “Now that Trump is back in the White House, Europeans are coming to grip with the fact that there are permanent changes in the United States’ approach to European security’”
The message came as NATO’s 32 nations agreed to more than double their defense spending targets, long a sore spot with Trump but now a selling point for his involvement in transatlantic security. It was an about-face from the president’s first term, when he regularly shared his reluctance to defend Europe, and even from the first months of this year, when he leaned heavily into rebooting relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and unsettled Europeans with threats toward Ukraine.
President Trump said in a news conference on June 25 that he would be leaving the NATO summit “differently,” saying the defense alliance was not a “rip-off.” (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Markus Schreiber/AP/The Washington Post)
Trump’s turnaround Wednesday was the payoff of a major effort by other NATO members to flatter him. Trump stayed overnight in a royal palace, received fawning messages from NATO’s secretary general and watched as one leader after another took the floor in a closed-door meeting to praise him for his leadership and his recent attack on Iran. At a summit tailor-made to please the U.S. president, Trump celebrated dual triumphs on Iran and the alliance’s agreement to boost military outlays to levels that many other members found outlandish eight years ago.
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“I watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump told reporters after the meetings. “It was great. And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a rip-off, and we’re here to help them protect their country.”
With a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Iran holding into a second day, Trump celebrated foreign policy wins that were not guaranteed just days ago, when he launched massive airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. In a series of social media posts and appearances that gave an unusual real-time window into his thinking and his interactions with fellow presidents and prime ministers, Trump made the case that his mix of risk-taking and threat-making could pay off.
But under questioning from reporters, Trump acknowledged the existence of an initial U.S. intelligence report that assessed that Iran’s nuclear program was probably set back by months but not eliminated, contradicting Trump’s assertions that the facilities were “obliterated.” He blasted the media for questioning the impact of the strikes and said that the assessment was highly uncertain because it was early and because it had not directly examined the site. He didn’t offer clear evidence for his own assertion that the facilities were fully destroyed.
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“The report said what it said,” said Trump, suggesting that the intelligence officials who created the document “had no idea” what the damage was, and that they “shouldn’t have issued a report until they did.”
“They didn’t see it,” the president continued. “All they can do is take a guess.”
The gathering in this Dutch coastal city was a measure of how much Trump has changed world affairs after his reelection. During Trump’s first term, many European allies hoped to endure four years of tense relations with him before resuming life with a friendlier leader in Washington. Now, most have accepted that Trump reflects a changed United States — and that they, too, need to change to accommodate him. A declaration agreed to by NATO’s 32 leaders after the summit made little mention of Ukraine and did not reference a war there, one measure of how much sway Trump has over the alliance.
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“During Trump’s first term, many Europeans assumed it was a parenthesis, and believed the traditional transatlanticism was back forever when Biden was elected,” said Camille Grand, who was a NATO assistant secretary general during Trump’s first term. “Now that Trump is back in the White House, Europeans are coming to grip with the fact that there are permanent changes in the United States’ approach to European security.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte captured the moment as he praised what he said was Trump’s boldness in attacking Iranian nuclear sites, then badgering Tehran and Israel into a ceasefire. Trump compared the two countries to schoolboys fighting on a playground.
“Daddy has to sometimes do strong language,” Rutte told Trump ahead of a meeting Wednesday, after interrupting Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say that he wanted to “alert” the Trump administration that “this president, when it comes to it, yes, he is a man of peace, but if necessary, he is willing to use strength.”
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Critics cautioned that Trump’s wins were more complicated than they appeared: Some NATO countries remain unconvinced of the need to increase their defense spending in a major way, and diplomats agreed on language that offers ample room to delay and downplay their budget expansions.
Even Trump’s post of a fawning text message from Rutte on his social media account may have had mixed effects, as some diplomats cringed at the publication of what was intended as a private communication and noted that their own leaders may need to be more careful about what words they use privately with Trump in the future. The diplomats, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about internal assessments.
Still, Trump said he was satisfied with the moment, a lightning-round trip that put him on the ground in the Netherlands for less than 24 hours.
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The “Trump summit,” Rubio deemed it in a Wednesday interview with Politico.
The U.S. leader reveled in the moment.
“I actually had breakfast today with a king and a queen who were beautiful, beautiful people. Central casting,” Trump told reporters Wednesday, referring to Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. The pair put up the president in one of their palaces in The Hague for the night.
Throughout the NATO summit Wednesday, there were glimpses of the lengths some European officials were going to to flatter Trump even more than usual.
“I think we should choose the motto ‘Make NATO Great Again,’” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said, explaining that Lithuania would be increasing its defense spending to 4 percent this year, and then would exceed 5 percent next year, as Trump called for.
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“I would like to extend my gratitude to President Donald Trump, because without his engagement I would imagine we would discuss the level of 2.5 percent, with no clear positive outcome,” Nauseda continued. “Probably those discussions would lead to nothing.”
Inside the main session, Trump led off with positive words about defense spending, and vowed that Russia would never attack NATO so long as he was president, according to three European officials familiar with the discussions.
Other leaders in turn praised Trump’s efforts to boost European defense spending. Some endorsed his Iran strikes. Many embraced the flattery that they have learned is a highly effective way to Trump’s heart, the European officials said.
Trump stayed for the duration of the speechmaking, hearing out the other leaders — not always a guarantee with U.S. presidents, who sometimes come to make their speech but then depart to hold other meetings while other leaders talk.
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Despite the NATO meetings, which were focused on European defense, increasing spending and dealing with threats, Russia chief among them, Trump spent much of the day defending his Iran strikes.
Trump posted clips on Truth Social of allies talking about what a success the strikes were. The White House distributed a photograph of a typed statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission saying Fordow’s infrastructure was “destroyed” and “inoperable.”
The president acknowledged that unknowns remained about the extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Well, they said it was — actually the report said it could have been very — they don’t know,” Trump told reporters. “I mean, they did a report. I could have [Secretary of Defense] Pete [Hegseth] talk to it because his department did the report. They really don’t know.”
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Then Trump doubled down on his earlier claims that the damage was irreparable.
“I believe it was total obliteration,” Trump continued. “I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast.”
At NATO, the spending pledge has met pushback from allies straining to reach even 2 percent. Some southern European countries, including Spain, have also fought the effort to boost spending, saying that their security needs differ from neighbors that are closer to Russia. Russia’s neighbors in Eastern Europe have already launched drastic military buildups — less because of Trump, and more because of urgent security concerns about the Kremlin.
Some leaders objected to portrayals of the summit as a grand effort to make Trump happy.
“It is a European necessity that we must do this, for ourselves and to be more independent,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the summit. “To put things back in the heart of the discussion, we are doing all this because there is the Russian threat.”
He acknowledged broader tensions with Washington, saying he and other leaders had raised grievances with Trump’s trade tariffs on the sidelines of the summit.
“We cannot among allies say we must spend more and at the heart of NATO wage commercial war. It is an aberration,” Macron said.
The pushback underscored that announcing a pledge to keep Trump happy at the summit is probably easier than winning approval or finding the funds in European capitals that are facing sluggish growth and tough decisions on spending cuts. NATO nations have until 2035 to meet the spending level — a timeline that is flexible enough to give wide wiggle room to postpone for some countries who do not want to do it. Some may defer until they know the identity of Trump’s successor.
And allies have applied some expansive math to boost their efforts: 1.5 percentage points of the increase can be for “defense-related” spending, such as infrastructure, while NATO will also count military aid to Ukraine toward the calculations. The core spending increase will be to 3.5 percent.
The tweaked definition of defense spending aligns with assessments that nations should better prepare for modern warfare such as cyberattacks and enhance roads that may be used in a military crisis. But it has also faced criticism of being too broad and fudging the numbers.
“Basically, I consider it creative accounting, but it’s okay to add the 1.5 percent that gives 5 percent to please President Trump,” said former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He said the 10-year deadline to achieve the new target was “much too long,” but that “it seems to be the only way to achieve consensus.”
Spain, driven in part by public opinion and national politics, agreed to Wednesday’s declaration but opposes the military spending spree, which Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has described as “disproportionate.” Spanish officials have argued that the country can enhance military capabilities — as required by NATO — without spending that much and that this would weigh on public coffers.
Sánchez didn’t raise the issue again in the leaders’ meeting with Trump, according to one participant in the meeting. But he came in for heavy criticism from the president afterward, who said that “Spain’s terrible, what they’ve done.”
Trump vowed to make Spain pay more on trade tariffs in retaliation.
Takeaways from the Trump-dominated NATO summit
NATO’s summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday has been described as “transformational’ and “historic” “We’re witnessing the birth of a new NATO ,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said. The 32 members of the world’s biggest security organization endorsed a plan to massively ramp up defense spending, driven by U.S. President Donald Trump and fears of the security threat posed by Russia. The nonbinding spending agreement means a steep budget hike for NATO’s European members and Canada that will cost them tens of billions of dollars. Trump sent a text message gushing about the summit, saying, “Europe is in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” the Netherlands’ prime minister said on Twitter. The leaders reaffirmed their “ironclad commitment” to NATO’S collective defense clause, Article 5, but did not mention Ukraine in the statement.. Russia was identified as the standout of the “profound security threats and challenges” facing NATO.
Here are some of the takeaways from the two-day meeting in The Hague.
Tens of billions of dollars in new military spending
The nonbinding spending agreement means a steep budget hike for NATO’s European members and Canada that will cost them tens of billions of dollars.
It’s a major revamp of the way NATO calculates defense spending. Until now, the allies had set a target of 2% of gross domestic product for their defense budgets. Now they’ll be aiming for 3.5% by 2035.
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They’ll now be able to include weapons and ammunition they supply to Ukraine in the equation, making the new target slightly easier to reach, but still difficult for Canada and a number of European countries with economic troubles.
On top of that, the allies will dedicate 1.5% of their GDP to upgrading infrastructure — roads, bridges, ports and airfields — needed to deploy armies to the front. Money spent on protecting networks or preparing societies for future conflict can be included.
Progress will be reviewed in 2029, after the next U.S. presidential election.
Not everyone is on board. Spain officially refused the agreement. Slovakia had reservations. Belgium, France and Italy will struggle to meet the new target.
A Trump commitment to collective defense
The leaders reaffirmed their “ironclad commitment” to NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5 . In recent years, Trump had sowed seeds of doubt about whether the U.S. — NATO’s most powerful member — would come to the aid of any ally under attack.
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Trump had appeared to condition that support on higher defense spending. With NATO’s new spending pledge in the bag, he told reporters that “I left there saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a ripoff. And we’re here to help them protect their country.”
He added that “they want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same.”
A sidelined Ukraine
After Russia invaded Ukraine by launching the biggest land conflict since World War II in 2022, NATO summits have largely focused on providing support to Kyiv. This summit was different.
Previously, the emphasis was on Ukraine’s membership prospects and on bringing it closer to NATO without actually joining. But the final summit statement this time made no such mention.
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Instead, the leaders underlined “their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was at the venue. He dined with other leaders at the Dutch king’s residence, held talks with several leaders and spent half an hour or so with Trump.
NATO’s plan was to focus the meeting only on Trump’s pet cause, defense spending. Foreign ministers did meet on the sidelines with their Ukrainian counterpart in an official NATO-Ukraine Council.
In a minor win for Ukraine, and for allies needing to persuade citizens that their governments must spend more on defense, Russia was identified as the standout of the “profound security threats and challenges” facing NATO.
A ‘nice group of people’
If there were doubts that the United States runs NATO, the summit removed them. A very shortened summit and one-page statement were prepared to keep the U.S. president happy and focused.
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As Trump flew to the Netherlands, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte sent a text message gushing about him being on the verge of a great achievement and saying, “Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”
Trump posted the message on social media. Rutte said he wasn’t embarrassed and that it was all true.
After the meeting, Trump said he came to the summit seeing it as a political chore, but he was leaving convinced that the assembled leaders love the alliance, their own countries and, mostly importantly, the United States.
Trump says Nato defence spend rising to 5% of GDP is ‘big win’ for US and the West
Nato members agree 5% defence target – the question now is whether Europe can deliver. For more than a decade that target was just 2%. Most European leaders were keen to avoid a rift with the US president – who in the past has raised doubts about America’s commitment to Nato allies. The final communique re-affirmed Nato’s ironclad guarantee to collective defence. But while Russia was identified as a long-term threat, there was no direct mention of his war in Ukraine.
Jonathan Beale
Defence correspondent, reporting from the Nato summit
This was a short Nato summit with a single clear purpose. To deliver on the one thing President Donald Trump has been demanding – that Europe and Canada spend more on their own defence.
Nato allies promised to raise defence related spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. For more than a decade that target was just 2%. Most European leaders were keen to avoid a rift with the US president – who in the past has raised doubts about America’s commitment to Nato allies. But the final communique re-affirmed Nato’s ironclad guarantee to collective defence.
Nato’s chief Mark Rutte heaped praise on Trump and gave him the credit: “America expects European allies and Canada to contribute more. And that is exactly what we see them doing.”
President Trump hailed it as a personal triumph, saying Nato was no longer a rip-off. “It’s a monumental win for the United States because we were carrying much more than our fair share. It was quite unfair actually. But this is a big win for Europe and for actually Western civilisation”.
Underlining the UK’s commitment to the US and the alliance, Keir Starmer confirmed the UK would purchase US jets – capable of carrying American owned and controlled tactical nuclear weapons. It marks the return of the RAF to nuclear deterrence for the first time in three decades, representing the biggest strengthening of our deterrence posture in a generation.
In reality, it’s also Vladimir Putin who has persuaded allies to ramp up defence spending. But while Russia was identified as a long-term threat, there was no direct mention of his war in Ukraine. President Trump has yet to deliver on his promise to bring an end to the conflict. But he still claimed he’d made the world safer.
This was a summit designed to keep America – Nato’s most powerful member – on side and to placate an unpredictable president. The question now is whether Europe can deliver.
Trump wraps up a NATO summit far chummier than the tense meetings of his first term
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will abide by Article 5 of the NATO treaty. The 32-nation alliance has agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. Trump said he was inspired by other NATO countries that were motivated to provide for their own defense by bolstering their own spending. The focus on Ukraine was scaled back dramatically, with its invasion by Russia earning only a passing mention in the summit’s official statement, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s profile at the gathering diminished. It was a far cry from the tense meetings of Trump’s first term at the NATO summit in The Hague, where he was booed by other leaders and accused of freeloading off the U.S., a charge he denies. The summit came eight years after his NATO debut in 2017, a gathering that was perhaps most remembered by his shove of Mark Dusko, the prime minister of Montenegro, as the president was jostled toward the front of the pack.
After less than 24 hours on the ground in the Netherlands, Trump headed back to Washington having secured a major policy change he’s pushed for since 2017: a significant boost in defense spending by other NATO countries whom the president has for years accused of freeloading off the United States. The focus on Ukraine was scaled back dramatically, with its invasion by Russia earning only a passing mention in the summit’s official statement, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s profile at the gathering diminished.
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Trump also sent NATO scattering for reassurances that the United States would remain committed to the alliance’s mutual defense pledge , affirming on Wednesday that he would abide by Article 5 of the NATO treaty just a day after he rattled the 32-nation alliance by being equivocal about the pact.
“I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said when asked to clarify his stance on Article 5. “If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”
Trump shifts his tone on NATO
At a news conference later Wednesday, Trump sounded reflective as he described feeling inspired by other NATO countries that were motivated to provide for their own defense by bolstering their own spending.
“They want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same,” Trump said, later adding: “I left here differently. I — I left here saying, ‘These people really love their countries. It’s not a rip-off.’ And we are here to help them protect their country.”
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He had mused just a day earlier that whether he abides by the treaty “depends on your definition” of Article 5.
The mutual praise in The Hague on Wednesday stands in stark contrast to Trump’s previous harsh words for the alliance, whose value he had long questioned. It also reflects the efforts made by other world leaders during the early months of Trump’s second term to approach the mercurial president using his own language of superlatives and flattery.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer showed up to the Oval Office in February to hand-deliver an invitation from King Charles III for a second state visit, which Starmer called “unprecedented.” Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has promised to “make the West great again,” echoing Trump’s campaign slogan. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte wrote in a message to “Mr. President, dear Donald” that his push for increased alliance defense spending would help “achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.”
Trump gets a win on spending increase
The 32 leaders endorsed a final summit statement saying: “Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense- and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”
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“I’ve been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years,” Trump said earlier in the day as he met with Rutte, whose private message of praise the U.S. president posted on his Truth Social account.
Spain had already officially announced that it cannot meet the target, and others have voiced reservations. Trump sounded peeved by Spain’s decision and said he’d have the country make up for it by paying higher tariffs to the United States as part of a trade deal.
Spain belongs to the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of all 27 member countries. They are not meant to negotiate trade deals individually.
NATO members took pains to be solicitious of Trump
Trump’s turn at this year’s summit came eight years after his NATO debut in 2017, a gathering that was perhaps most remembered by his shove of Dusko Markovic , the prime minister of Montenegro, as the U.S. president jostled toward the front of the pack of world leaders during a NATO headquarters tour.
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But the atmosphere around Trump this week seemed far chummier than in past years.
The president was offered — and accepted — the chance to sleep Tuesday night at the Dutch royal palace. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Trump said, were “beautiful people, great people, big, beautiful heart.”
Meanwhile, Rutte referred to Trump as a “daddy” who “has to sometimes use strong language” to stop a conflict between two warring entities — an analogy that the secretary-general used on the war between Israel and Iran.
“Doesn’t he deserve some praise?” Rutte said later at his own news conference when asked whether his use of “daddy” for Trump made him appear weak.
Few may have gone as far as Rutte, who has maintained a good relationship with Trump since the U.S. president returned to office, but other world leaders have found different ways to flatter Trump.
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Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda , as he advocated for the increase in defense spending by NATO allies, riffed on Trump’s campaign rally cry. “We should choose a motto: ‘Make NATO great again,’” he said.
Asked about Rutte’s behavior toward Trump, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “I didn’t find it obsequious.”
“I expressed it a bit more soberly in my words, but of course it is and remains true that it was only this U.S. administration — in combination with the war in Ukraine — that prompted us to decide what we decided today,” said Merz.
Trump administration lashes out at reporting on strike effectiveness
The Israel-Iran war and the recent U.S. strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities hung heavily over this year’s gathering. After Trump arrived in the Netherlands on Tuesday, The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that a U.S. intelligence report suggested in an early assessment that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months by weekend strikes and was not “completely and fully obliterated,” as Trump had said.
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But on Wednesday morning, Trump and other senior Cabinet officials vigorously pushed back on the assessment, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the administration was launching an investigation into who disclosed those findings to reporters.
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This story has been corrected to show Trump stayed at the Dutch king’s palace, not the Danish king’s palace.
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Why powerful pro-Tehran militias in Iraq stayed quiet amid Iran conflict
The militias in Iraq have long been an important part of Iran’s sprawling network across the region. Nowhere else in the Arab world do American and Iranian interests exist in such close proximity. The Iran-linked militias have also become central players in the Iraqi government. There is much at stake if these groups become a target, Middle East analysts say. The militias have been shaped by previous struggles for influence in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran, emerging warier of involvement in conflict and more independent of external backers.. The top Iraqi militia leader, Abu Mahdi. al-Muhandis, was killed in the same drone strike as Soleimani, forcing other senior leaders. into hiding as Iran and the. U.K. traded ballistic missiles and airstrikes on Iraqi soil. The militia leader who has previously targeted U.s. troops, issued only a muted statement, noting that Iraq’s inability to control its airspace made the country vulnerable. The groups are marbled through Iraq’s ruling institutions and have become political enforcers of the political regime.
But those Iraqi militias have proved to be conspicuously quiet.
These groups have been shaped by previous struggles for influence in Iraq between the U.S. and Iran, emerging warier of involvement in external conflict and more independent of external backers. The Iran-linked militias have also become central players in the Iraqi government, earning billions of dollars from state coffers, operating extensive business networks and holding more power than ever before. There is much at stake if these groups become a target, Middle East analysts say.
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“These groups have become so integrated into the Iraqi state in one way or another, whether it’s through business dealings, whether it is through politics. Why would these people give up on that?” asked Lahib Higel, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Iraq. Tensions may reach a point where the groups turn to violence, she said, “but these groups are going to stay quiet for as long as they can.”
The militias in Iraq have long been an important part of Iran’s sprawling network across the region of allies and proxy forces, which also include Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. That formidable network was built by Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who ran Iran’s Quds Force, the division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for external operations, and whom President Donald Trump had assassinated in January 2020 in Baghdad.
Unlike Hezbollah and the Houthis, Iraq’s militias had already learned the lessons of direct confrontation with the U.S., experts say. The top Iraqi militia leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed in the same drone strike as Soleimani, forcing other senior leaders into hiding as Iran and the U.S. traded ballistic missiles and airstrikes on Iraqi soil.
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Over the following years, the Iraqi militias adapted from top-down, Iranian-driven groups to ones with greater autonomy.
“The assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis removed a strong lever of control and influence that Iran had over several of these groups,” said Sajad Jiyad, a fellow at the New York-based Century International. “Not having that Godfather figure has meant that these groups have charted their own path.”
Iraq’s official network of militia factions, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, dates back to 2014, when tens of thousands of men across the mostly Shiite south answered calls from Iraq’s prime minister and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country’s top Shiite religious authority, to join the fight against Islamic State militants.
Today, the groups are marbled through Iraq’s ruling institutions and have become economic powerhouses and political enforcers of the political regime. Middle East analysts and Iraqi officials say Iraq has remained mostly aloof from the conflict pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran because of shared interests between the armed groups and their Iranian backers.
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After the U.S. bombers transiting Iraqi airspace struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia that has previously targeted U.S. troops, issued only a muted statement, noting that Iraq’s inability to control its airspace made the country vulnerable.
“The American forces in Iraq paved the way for this assault by opening Iraqi airspace,” the group said. “If it is said that we do not want Iraq to be a battleground, then it is incumbent upon us to restrain the role of foreign forces present on Iraqi soil and controlling its skies.”
Iraq’s military said the following day that a swarm of small drones had targeted six army bases but reached only two, causing damage to radar systems at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, and the Imam Ali base in Dhi Qar governorate, but no casualties. No U.S. forces were present at either one. The Iraqi army said in a statement that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani had ordered an investigation into the incident, without ascribing blame to any group.
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The militias’ tempered response reflects their desire not to be dragged into the sort of conflict that left Hezbollah eviscerated in Lebanon, said Higel. “They don’t want to face the same fate,” she said. “However much they support Iran in rhetoric, we’ve seen the fissures. They had already started when Soleimani was killed, but they’ve really accelerated after the 7th of October” attacks in Israel.
If their standing took a blow, it could put in jeopardy about $3.5 billion allocated in the Iraqi budget, according to the finance ministry, to pay militia salaries and provide other forms of support.
Iran, similarly, benefits from the quiet next door. “Iraq has remained outside the conflict primarily due to Iran’s desire to keep it that way,” said a senior Iraqi official who, like some others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject. “They understand that Iraq’s stability is extremely important to their national security and also to their economic situation.”
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As Western governments have sought to isolate Iran with sanctions, Iraq has become its economic lung. Iraq is not only a major trading partner, but Iran has used Iraqi currency exchanges to transfer money and Iraqi ports to mix and rebrand sanctioned oil products, according to researchers at the Chatham House international affairs think tank, providing Tehran with precious access to the international economy.
Iraq has also provided safe haven to other Iran-backed groups as they come under fire, the researchers found. After Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in September, dozens of senior Hezbollah business figures traveled to Iraq, where the group had made significant financial investments.
Jiyad, of Century International, said the pro-Iran armed groups are likely to remain on the sidelines for now. “It may be that the Iranians see that as an option to deploy later,” he said. “I think the Iranians are not trying to play all their cards at once.”
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Likewise, the senior Iraqi official said, these groups “are Iran’s last card.”