BAGHDAD—As a bitter struggle for power in Iraq nears its 11th month, there is one point that unites its rival Shiite factions: None of them wants to be seen as too close to Tehran.
For almost two decades since the U.S. invasion ousted Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein,
Iran has built strong ties with its neighbor, opposing American efforts and backing a network of militias that helps Tehran extend its reach. Iran, which is overwhelmingly Shia Muslim, helped to keep Iraq’s Shia majority unified and able to wield power, often to Tehran’s benefit.
Now, Iraq’s Shia factions are deeply divided in a sign of Iran’s weakening influence in the country. One side led by influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is in its fourth week of occupying the parliament grounds in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The other, the Coalition Framework, is seeking to form Iraq’s next government and is led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Mr. Sadr’s fierce rival and a politician known to be close to Iran.
“Iran gives us advice, but we don’t listen to all Iranian advice,” says Fahad al-Jubouri, a senior official in the National Wisdom Movement, a part of the Coalition Framework.
Mr. Sadr has also shunned association with the Iranians. “Iran can never control Sayed Moqtada al Sadr,” said Ibrahim al-Jaberi, who heads Mr. Sadr’s Baghdad office, using a title, Sayed, given to descendants of the Islamic prophet Mohammad.
The reluctance to be linked to Iran reflects a widespread weariness with Tehran, a potential threat to its strategy to limit U.S. influence in Iraq and to use its neighbor’s territory and airspace to move weapons and other supplies to Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere. Protesters have shouted anti-Iran slogans. Many Iraqis blame Tehran for empowering powerful militias that fought the so-called Islamic State but are now perceived as armed wings of Shiite political factions and, to some, as enforcers of a corrupt status quo.
It is those militias that make the crisis so volatile, raising the prospect that a fight so far waged mostly peacefully turns violent.
Armed clashes between Iraq’s heavily-armed Shiite factions would be one of the worst possible outcomes for Tehran. But an obvious Iranian effort to tilt toward Mr. Sadr’s opponents could inflame the standoff, analysts say.
“Iran’s major and first aim right now is to…
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