Iraqi PM Al-Zaidi made covert Tehran trip following Trump warning on militias

President Donald Trump welcomes Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., where the two leaders discussed expanding economic cooperation, energy investment and the future of U.S.-Iraq relations. Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi conducted a covert, unannounced diplomatic mission to Tehran immediately following a high-stakes telephone conference with U.S. President Donald Trump, according to political sources cited in an investigative report by Al-Mada newspaper. The rapid back-to-back engagement underscores Al-Zaidi’s effort to bridge direct White House ultimatums regarding militia disarmament with Tehran’s regional command architecture, even as domestic friction paralyzes his governing coalition in Baghdad. According to government insiders and a Shia politician close to the ruling Coordination Framework, Al-Zaidi received an explicit warning from Trump and U.S. Envoy Tom Barrack: Baghdad must move immediately to dismantle autonomous faction arsenals, or the United States will intervene militarily against them. The Prime Minister’s subsequent visit to Tehran—confirmed by Iraq’s Ambassador to Iran, Yasser Abdul-Zahra Al-Hajjaj, and Iranian media reporting a meeting with top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf—sought to leverage Baghdad’s bilateral ties to deter Iranian-aligned paramilitaries from participating in any regional conflict or targeting U.S. assets and neighboring Arab states. Domestically, the disarmament mandate has brought the Coordination Framework to a standstill, halting official coalition meetings since October 19. During the last gathering, Al-Zaidi warned coalition partners that failing to rein in the militias leaves him no alternative but to order state arrests, prompting warnings from faction chiefs that such operations would collapse both his government and the Shia alliance. Compounding the crisis are intelligence findings detailing industrial-scale crude oil theft in Jurf al-Sakhar—a sealed militarized zone south of Baghdad controlled by armed factions since 2014. Intelligence disclosures reveal illicit tapping of Iraq’s strategic pipeline, generating over 2 trillion dinars across five years via an estimated 105 smuggled tanker trucks daily (valued at $3.7 million per day or 35 billion dinars monthly), creating deep financial entrenchments that heighten political resistance to state authority. Analysts interpret Al-Zaidi’s silent shuttle diplomacy as a high-risk balancing maneuver. Strategic expert Ihsan Al-Shammari described the mission as shadow diplomacy designed to navigate U.S. ultimatums without antagonizing regional mediators like Qatar or Saudi Arabia, while Arab-Australian Center head Ahmed Al-Yasiri noted the outreach represents a bold attempt to secure an informal truce and prevent Iraqi territory from becoming a kinetic front in U.S.-Iran hostilities.