Iran’s Push for Influence Meets Resistance in Iraq and Syria

In Iraq, discontent among the country’s Shiite Muslim community with Iranian influence was reflected in cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s victory in this month’s election. Mr. Sadr, himself a Shiite, is a fierce nationalist whose supporters sometimes chant slogans criticizing Iran, the region’s top Shiite power.

Syrians in the largely secular capital, Damascus, have meanwhile accused Iran of stoking religious tensions. And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s other main foreign partner, Russia, has showed impatience with Iran’s growing military presence in Syria, which Israel has moved to contain with airstrikes.

The pushback poses another challenge for Tehran as it tries to defend its gains in the region and avoid international isolation following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decisionto withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear accord.

Iran has built a network of political, military and economic influence over the past several years in both Iraq and Syria as both countries suffered destabilizing violent conflicts. Tehran has helped Mr. Assad take ground back from rebels during the multisided conflict in Syria, and Iran-backed militias helped Iraq defeat Islamic State.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday spelled out demands for reaching a new agreement with Iran that would require Tehran to withdraw its forces from Syria and end its support for militant groups such as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded on Wednesday, threatening to scale up Iran’s activities and rejecting any talk of Tehran rolling back its ballistic missile program and regional presence—both central to U.S. demands.

Tehran’s influence in Iraq is mostly viewed as an inescapable fact. The two countries share a long border, and Iran has expanded its influence in Iraq in the years since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime.

Iraqi Shiites have often bristled at their neighbor’s efforts, and Iraq’s war against Islamic State, which culminated in victory for Baghdad late last year, has also increased nationalist sentiment.

The electoral alliance backed by Mr. Sadr campaigned against corruption and foreign interference in Iraqi affairs, and it won the most seats in parliament. That message echoed calls by Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the biggest bulwark against Iranian influence in the country.

Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s victory in recent Iraqi elections reflected discontent among the country’s Shiite Muslim community with Iranian influence. PHOTO: ALAA AL-MARJANI/REUTERS

In a sign of the changed mood on the street, Iran-backed militias that fought Islamic State no longer openly swear allegiance to Mr. Khamenei.

Iran still has ample room to maneuver, thanks to deep relationships across the political spectrum, including with Sunnis and Kurds. An alliance of political parties backed by Iran came in second in the recent elections.

Iran has “numerous people within the Iraqi system who take their preferences seriously. That is a permanent feature of the Iraqi political landscape,” said Michael Stephens, research fellow for Middle East studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “Maybe the mood is less pro-Iran at the moment, but things change.”

In Syria, a close ally of Tehran for almost four decades, Iran’s muscular presence includes elite forces, with military bases and militias such as Hezbollah across the country. But that presence has become a growing liability for Mr. Assad.

Israel has said it won’t allow an Iranian presence near its northern borders and has ramped up attacks on Iranian positions on Syrian soil. Those attacks also cause casualties and damage to Syrian government positions, and risk broadening the war at a time when Mr. Assad is trying to consolidate his gains.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week gave one of the starkest hints that Iran was wearing out its welcome when he said foreign forces will soon start leaving Syria. Russia intervened in the Syria in late 2015, helping turn the tide for Mr. Assad.

A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Bahram Qasemi, rebuffed Mr. Putin, telling reporters in Tehran that Iran will stay in Syria “as long as terrorism exists.” Syrian and Iranian government officials both say Iran’s forces are in Syria at the Assad regime’s request.

The Syrian government has sought to play down its reliance on Iran in recent months. Syrian pro-regime media said this week that foreign forces withdrew ahead of a government offensive on rebels in the area of Daraa, near Israel. When Israeli missile strikes hit Iranian-linked bases in Syria earlier in May, the Syrian government insisted that it, and not Iran, had launched the missiles that triggered the Israeli retaliation.

The Syrian government has also sought to limit Iran’s reach beyond the military sphere, reneging on preliminary agreements giving Iran rights to phosphate mining and mobile phone networks.

Iran has built and refurbished Shiite shrines and bought hotels to boost religious tourism. It has drawn militia members from Syria’s tiny Shiite minority who chant sectarian slogans and, in a videotaped funeral of a militia fighter that caused widespread anger on social media, cursed Sunnis and threatened to burn down Damascus.

Iran is unlikely to cede hard-won strategic gains in the region.

“Iran has a sense of entitlement, having spent so much money, energy and lives, and it is now seeking to cash in its chips,” said Jubin Goodarzi, an associate professor at the Geneva campus of Webster University, which is based in St. Louis, and author of a book on Syrian-Iranian relations.

If the pressure continues, Iran may have to cut its losses, Mr. Goodarzi said, in which case Iraq will remain first priority.

In Syria, “if they need to, they will downsize,” he said. “But in Iraq, they’ll make sure there is no setback.”