Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and cofounder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to Iran-backed militias.
In this chapter from the Jihadist Governance and Statecraft compilation, Michael Knights explores the scope and nature of jihadist governance in Iraq.
Is today’s Iraq an example of jihadist governance? I would argue yes. The militant factions that form the core of the country’s ruling bloc, the Coordination Framework, are self-confessed members of a transnational jihadist front known as the “axis of resistance.” Their objective is to expand the Islamic Revolution that began in Iran in 1979 and to protect all the existing extensions of their so-called Shia project—the Islamic Republic of Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen-based Ansar Allah, and the Iraqi terrorist groups and militias of the Coordination Framework.
