Iran is mobilizing Iraqi militias in operations targeting Saudi Arabia, which has caused growing dissatisfaction among Iraqi leaders. The Iranian escalation in the Middle East is weakening pro-Tehran Iraqi Shiite militias, with leading Shiite figures condemning Iraq's involvement in the war and Iranian influence. The current escalation risks weakening Iranian influence among part of the Shiite population and strengthening the Iraqi state. Nearly six months after the start of the war in Iran, the outcome of the operation launched by the American-Israeli coalition is surprising. Not only does the Iranian regime hold its ground, but it is able to deploy its capacity for nuisance both regionally and globally. After the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic has managed, through its Houthi proxies, to block the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and appears capable of paralyzing Saudi oil exports, as shown by the attack carried out by pro-Iranian Iraqi militias on the country's main east-west oil pipeline on September 11. In the diplomatic field, Tehran seems to be achieving successive successes and emerging from its isolation, as indicated by the meeting of the Iranian and Chinese foreign ministers on September 16 in Beijing, following which China reaffirmed its "support for Iran" in the defense of its "legitimate interests." These recent events encourage some observers to conclude that the regime is strengthening, or even that Iran is winning the war currently underway. However, by breaking the ceasefire at the beginning of July 2026 and attacking some Saudi energy infrastructure, Iran has embarked on an offensive phase that implies a high political cost for the Islamic Republic. Thus, the attacks on Saudi Arabia, because they were carried out from Iraqi territory, have sparked lively political debates in Iraq and have pushed Shiite leaders to consider disarming pro-Iranian militias. Even though these internal tensions within the Shiite world do not attract much attention from Western media, they reveal durable and deep changes that all point in the direction of a weakening of Iran within the Shiite arc. In Iraq, the Iranian escalation is pushing the government of Ali Al-Zaïdi, which is dominated by Shiite parties, to disarm the coalition of pro-Iranian Shiite militias of the Hachd al-Chaabi (created in Iraq with the support of Iran to fight Daesh) or to integrate them into the state apparatus. The ultimatum issued by the government to pro-Iranian militias in June 2026, which obliges them to integrate into the state apparatus or disarm by September 30, 2026, pursues a clear objective: to prevent Tehran from activating these militias to strike Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which would lead Iraq into an escalation process with the Gulf monarchies. However, even though the government has ultimately decided to postpone the end of the ultimatum until summer 2027, this confrontation between the state and the militias led by Tehran seems, in the short term, to be in favor of Baghdad since several militias have, as early as summer 2026, chosen to obey the government rather than the injunctions of the Iranian patron. The Shiite nationalist militia Saraya-al Salam, which is hostile to Iranian interference, quickly showed the way by proposing, prior to the ultimatum, as early as May, the absorption of all its forces by the state. Proof of the decline of Tehran's control over its militias, the Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), a militia closely aligned with Iran, announces in June, through its leader Qais-al-Kazahli, its withdrawal from the Hachd al-Chaabi and its willingness to submit to Baghdad. Even though other Hachd al-Chaabi militias, such as the Kataeb Hezbollah, have not yet favorably responded to the ultimatum of the Iraqi state, several factors allow hope for their alignment with the saadrist or AAH line. The Shiite militias seeking to integrate into the state and thus limit Iranian interference have a higher religious legitimacy since they can count on the support of Ali al-Sistani, the main marja (jurist with the highest authority in Twelver Shiism) of Iraqi Shiites, who has publicly expressed his support for the state in its effort to disarm or absorb pro-Iranian militias. Recall that the Hachd al-Chaabi was founded in 2014 in the context of the war against Daesh by a fatwa from the same Al-Sistani, who views these militias as defensive tools aimed against the expansion of the Islamic State and not as a tool of Iranian domination over Iraq - and even less as a destabilizing force for Gulf neighbors. Moreover, the current evolution of the Iranian regime, whose clerical and religious component is increasingly overshadowed by the military power of the Guardians of the Revolution, deprives pro-Iranian militias of a religious legitimacy capable of competing with that of Al-Sistani. In this context, the unwavering support of the Hachd al-Chaabi militias for Iran and its escalation policy could completely cut them off from their popular base. Several indicators seem to confirm that the Iraqi Shiite population is hostile to the escalation carried out by Tehran. The strong condemnation of the bombings by several very popular Shiite political figures, such as Moqtada Sadr, seems to confirm this hypothesis. Always concerned about maintaining the support of the Shiite street, Moqtada Sadr condemns the Iranian militias and their desire to implement Tehran's escalation policy. In a tweet on July 30, 2026, the day after American-Saudi strikes launched in response to previous attacks by the Hachd al-Chaabi that resulted in at least twenty deaths in Iraq, the Iraqi Shiite leader declared: "The brazen actions of the militias and the fact that weapons are not exclusively in the hands of the state have caused and continue to cause, without any justification, the martyrdom of the combatants of the Popular Forces and security forces. Meanwhile, their leaders enjoy security, comfort, and commerce. That is enough of these individual and irrational behaviors." This tweet allows understanding the political strategy of the Shiite leader who uses the war to return to the center of the political debate. The Iranian escalation allows him to develop a discourse hostile to the "Iran-sold" leaders, who impose on their fighters a strategy contrary to their own interests and those of Iraq. The tweet suggests a link between the implementation by the Hachd al-Chaabi of orders from Tehran on one hand and the corruption of its leaders on the other, and echoes an Iraqi nationalism exacerbated by Tehran's policy of involving Iraq in conflicts that bring nothing beneficial to it. The strikes carried out by Tehran from Iraq on Saudi Arabia provide the ideal opportunity for nationalist leaders like Moqtada Sadr to condemn the Iranian influence on Iraqi militias, as recalled by another tweet from July 29: "I condemn the actions of the brazen militias that are dragging Iraq into a sterile war, I call on the Iraqi government to restore security, enforce sovereignty, and work tirelessly for the security of the Iraqi people and their holy sites, without being dragged into repulsive sectarian superstitions." Moqtada Sadr is the voice of a discourse that the war makes more tangible and evident to Iraqi Shiites: the actions of Iranian militias, in addition to involving Iraq in the war, contribute to the process of sectarianization of the country, which divides it and weakens its sovereignty to the benefit of Tehran. Thus, the successes of Iranian proxies in Saudi Arabia come at the expense of Iran's soft power within the Shiite arc in Iraq. It is therefore necessary to nuance the image of an Islamic Republic emerging strengthened from the war. Of all the countries that make it up, Iraq seems to be the main weak link of the "axis of resistance" since the Iraqi Shiite militias are facing a dilemma: either carry out the orders of Tehran and alienate thus the popular support of part of the Iraqi street (including Shiites), or integrate into the Iraqi state apparatus, but lose the support of the Iranian patron. The vitality of Iraqi nationalism, awakened by Iranian interventions, the legitimacy of Iraqi Shiite religious elites and especially their autonomy vis-à-vis Tehran seem to indicate that these militias will refuse the escalation orders coming from Tehran. A dynamic of this kind, if it applies to other pro-Iranian militias, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, could significantly stabilize the Middle East by strengthening states such as Lebanon or Iraq, whose sovereignty the Islamic Republic wanted to destroy.