Recasting the Region: Iran–Iraq Security Deal Narrows Israel’s Options

By Jaffa Levy

Baghdad’s new security memorandum with Tehran is not a tidy border fix. It is the start of a legal denial regime: a pledge that neither country’s territory or airspace will be used by third parties against the other, underpinned by formal intelligence-sharing and joint patrols. Signed in the Iraqi capital by Qasim al-Araji and Ali Larijani, and witnessed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, the pact tightens the operating environment for outside powers and proxies alike. Neighbours, mindful of Iran’s record of arming partners and firing missiles beyond its borders, will read it as an amplifier of Tehran’s reach even as Baghdad frames it as sovereign border security.

“Shia Super-Alliance”: Why Israeli Hawks Are Alarmed

In Jerusalem, the agreement is already being described by hawks as the hinge of a “Shia super-alliance,” a land-and-air lattice from Iran across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. The June Twelve-Day War exposed the operational stakes: many Israeli munitions were fired from outside Iranian airspace, with Iraqi skies used as corridor and tanker orbits loitering overhead. Such tracks are slow and predictable. If Baghdad deepens sensor-sharing with Tehran or integrates Iranian air-defence coverage, refuelling over Iraq becomes vulnerable. Israel can adapt—with longer-range standoff weapons, alternative routes over Jordan or the Red Sea, and more distant tanker stacks—but each step adds cost and reduces flexibility.

Lebanon: A Northern Front That Will Not Quiet

Beirut has bristled at a renewed American push to link any Israeli pullback in the south to Lebanese “security benchmarks.” Hezbollah has answered in unambiguous terms: no disarmament. Despite interdictions along the Damascus–Bekaa corridor, the movement has adapted rather than folded, and the threat along Israel’s northern border has not abated. Ideas for a deeper buffer zone, or for leaning on local understandings with Druze communities in the Golan Heights and across the line in Syria, are no substitute for a political arrangement; they are brittle and reversible. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces remain heavily committed in Gaza. Signs of strain are visible, and critics—from former prime ministers to retired commanders and ex-intelligence chiefs—have condemned the government’s course, largely to no effect inside the coalition.

HTS, ISIS and the Fractured Northwest

Abu Mohammad al-Julani—born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa—rose from al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, to lead Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). With decisive Turkish and U.S. backing, and after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, he consolidated power in Damascus. Washington moved quickly to revoke HTS’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation, arguing that it had localised its fight and broken with transnational jihadist networks. Julani’s pedigree is clear: Nusra was originally seeded by the Islamic State of Iraq and, in its early phase, operated alongside ISIS before a violent rupture in 2013. Since then, HTS and ISIS have been bitter rivals, but both share an enduring hostility toward Shia and Alawite communities. Rights reporting has documented atrocities by HTS-aligned units in minority districts, underscoring the coercive nature of Julani’s rule.

Israel Cannot Rely on Damascus

In this new landscape, Israel cannot depend on Damascus as a partner. Jerusalem has moved to degrade what remained of Syria’s air-defense network and to hold a buffer zone along the Golan. There are horrific reports of atrocities by HTS-aligned units against Alawite and other minority communities. The pattern reinforces the view that Julani’s Syria is fragmented and coercive rather than stable, a state built on fragile alliances and external sponsorship rather than durable legitimacy.

The Kurdish Dimension

The pact extends earlier efforts to curb cross-border militancy by Kurdish armed groups operating from northern Iraq into Iran. In practical terms, Baghdad promises its territory will not be a staging ground against Tehran—and expects reciprocity. That stance aligns, uneasily but unmistakably, with the preferences of Iran and Turkey and constrains the manoeuvre space of Kurdish movements pursuing autonomy or independence across Iraq, Iran and Turkey. For Erbil, it tightens the political room between aspiration and the security red lines of three powerful neighbours.

Shrines, Strategy and Shia Mobilisation

Iraq houses the core of Shia sacred geography—Najaf, Karbala, Kadhimiya, Samarra—tying Iraqi and Iranian Shia societies in dense patterns of pilgrimage and clerical authority. The relevance today is strategic: a Baghdad–Tehran shield over Iraqi airspace will be read by Shia constituencies as protection for the social heartland that underwrites mobilisation in any wider confrontation. (Major shrines in Mashhad and Qom in Iran reinforce the two-state tether.)

Who Beat ISIS—and Why It Matters Now

From 2014, Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces—predominantly Shia—fought alongside the Iraqi security forces to halt and reverse ISIS, including in and around Mosul. Hezbollah fought ISIS and aligned jihadists along the Syria–Lebanon frontier. In parallel, the Kurdish-led SDF carried the campaign in northeastern Syria with U.S. support. Iran did not face ISIS holding ground inside its borders, but it absorbed attacks at home and projected force abroad to prevent the group’s regeneration. For formations that bore the ground cost of that war, codifying a state-to-state shield is the logical next step.

Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Problem—With Context

Saudi Shia—roughly a tenth of citizens, and a substantial share of the Eastern Province where the kingdom’s critical oil infrastructure sits—face documented discrimination and periodic mass executions. In 2019 the state executed 37 men in a single day, the majority of them Shia; in 2022 it executed 81 in a day, with rights groups identifying dozens of Shia among them; execution totals have surged again in recent years, including for non-violent offences. Riyadh maintains these cases concern terrorism or organised crime under due process. Either way, the message delivered in the oil belt—Qatif, al-Ahsa and the industrial hubs around Abqaiq and the Ghawar field—is unmistakable: dissent in the districts that power the petro-state is met with exemplary force.

Washington, London, Brussels: The Western Risk Sheet

For Washington, the pact intersects with a scheduled coalition draw-down in Iraq and a broader re-posture. President Biden’s tenure closed without reviving the nuclear accord and amid spillovers from Gaza and the Red Sea; the incoming Trump administration inherits the same map with fewer tools, as Iraq shifts the U.S. presence onto a tighter bilateral footing while Iran welds legal ties next door. Europe’s exposure runs through sea lanes and energy: Houthi attacks linked to Iran’s wider deterrence network have repeatedly spiked insurance costs and forced rerouting, prompting EU naval escorts and U.K. participation in strikes. Any tightening of the Iran–Iraq axis that emboldens affiliates will ripple through freight rates, LNG transit times and already stretched NATO maritime bandwidth.

What the Pact Does—and Doesn’t

• Denies territory, airspace and infrastructure for operations against the other signatory.
• Normalises intelligence fusion and joint patrolling—the plumbing of an alliance.
• Complicates Israeli routing and escalation control in the north-eastern approach.
• Converges with Iranian and Turkish preferences on Kurdish cross-border activity.
• Does not create a NATO-style Article 5; ambiguity is part of the design.

A Region Recast

The Iran–Iraq pact narrows Israel’s operational geometry, gives Iran strategic depth, and steadily recasts the “Axis of Resistance” from militias into state policy. Israeli officials will adapt—more standoff, longer routes, thicker air-defence stacks—but the trajectory is adverse. Gulf capitals will hedge. Europe will keep escorting ships. In Israel’s core partnerships, sympathy has ebbed after the Gaza campaign, especially among European publics. The neighbourhood is harder than at any point in a generation—Jordan brittle, Egypt constrained, Lebanon unstable—and the old playbook of permissive corridors and divide-and-rule is being rewritten by memorandum as much as by missile.