Iraq: Fuel Crisis Exacerbates the Country’s Problems, Citizens’ Burdens

Iraq’s Shiite Coordination Framework has reached an impasse with armed factions refusing to surrender their weapons as the Sept. 30 deadline for the final US withdrawal approaches. The deadlock has cast doubt on government plans to celebrate the date as “Sovereignty Day.”

A three-member committee formed by the Framework has failed to secure a breakthrough. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s government had hoped Sept. 30 would mark both the departure of US forces and the transfer of factional weapons to state control. But the factions now reject the idea of a fixed deadline for handing over, restricting, disarming or freezing weapons held outside government authority.

“

This approach is what keeps us alongside our people, experiencing what they experience, carrying their concerns and working to fulfill their demands.

Harakat al-Nujaba, along with statements from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Badr Organization leader Hadi al-Amiri, has outlined the factions’ latest position. Groups including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba have previously rejected demands to surrender their arsenals, arguing that their weapons are ideological and not confined within national borders.

Ali al-Asadi, head of Nujaba’s Political Council, said the movement remained committed to protecting what he called the “sanctity” of the resistance’s weapons against regional risks and threats. In a post on X, he said he had met leading figures in the Coordination Framework and reaffirmed the importance of “preserving the Popular Mobilization Forces as a national body that cannot be compromised.” He also defended the resistance and its weapons, while reiterating Nujaba’s policy of staying outside the political process.

“

No force in the world and no regional circumstances can break a state whose people, in all their components and communities, rally around its institutions.

“This approach is what keeps us alongside our people, experiencing what they experience, carrying their concerns and working to fulfill their demands,” Asadi said. He added that the responsibility would remain until “comprehensive change” secured sovereignty, security and prosperity, freed Iraq’s economy from American domination and stabilized the domestic situation.

“

The next phase requires wisdom, steadfastness and solidarity.

The government has responded through Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. “No force in the world and no regional circumstances can break a state whose people, in all their components and communities, rally around its institutions,” Numan said. He warned of “a flood of alarmism led by platforms financed with suspicious funds to peddle fear and exploit Iraqis’ emotions as the Sept. 30 deadline approaches.”

Military and strategic expert Mukhlad Hazem told Asharq Al-Awsat that political blocs often make public statements that do not reflect their private thinking. He said all sides understood that their gains, prestige and power could be lost, and that the issue of bringing weapons under state control had to be resolved.

“

Everyone agrees that the issue of bringing weapons under state control must be resolved because it is no longer a matter