Countering Iran’s influence in Iraq from Obama to Trump: instruments and implications, 2009–2020

ABSTRACT This article seeks to determine the key instruments that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump adopted to undermine Iranian influence in Iraq, along with explaining their implications in practice. Since 2003, diminishing Iranian influence in Iraq was regarded to be vital U.S. interests. This is due to the fact that Iranian domination in Iraq would bolster its expansionist policy in the region. Both the Obama and Trump administrations, in varying ways, used common instruments to counter the Iranian influence in Iraq, including attempting to establish an anti-Iranian government in Baghdad, prioritizing stability through the use of strongmen over supporting democratic institutions and empowering meaningful power sharing. However, unlike the Obama administration, Trump exerted maximum political and economic pressure along with military threats against Iran and its allies in Iraq rather than pursuing dialogue with the nations. Yet these various instruments had a limited impact on diminishing Iran’s influence in Iraq.