The Soleimani Assassination Was Supposed to Weaken Iraqi Militias. Instead, They're Flexing Their Muscles.

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : "The message is that the PMF is here to stay and that it's developing in terms of equipment, training and institutionalization," Husseini told POLITICO in a rare interview in his Baghdad office, adorned with pictures of Soleimani, Mohandis and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
53% : "They don't need the same support from Iran," says Malik.
52% : Though data on their business activities is scant, the additional resources have allowed them to become more financially and operationally independent from Tehran.
51% : His presence, coveted by the PMF to underscore its legality as a state institution, was only guaranteed after organizers agreed to refrain from displaying images of Soleimani and burning American or Israeli flags, according to several officials and analysts familiar with the discussion.
46% : In Iraq's easternmost province of Diyala near the border with Iran, thousands of paramilitaries marched in neatly arranged columns, trailed by an imposing procession of tanks and armored vehicles.
45% : "You cannot underestimate the damage done by killing people such as Soleimani and Mohandis to the Iranian strategy in the region," says Hamdi Malik, associate fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who monitors militia activity in Iraq.
43% : The shift to more sophisticated drone attacks has left coalition forces on the backfoot, fending off an even tougher challenge than the clumsy rocket and missile attacks that helped prompt the U.S. to strike Soleimani and Mohandis in the first place.
41% : These campaigns are a sign that the demise of Mohandis and Soleimani has not hampered the paramilitaries' tactical abilities, even though their deaths left a leadership vacuum that has curtailed Iranian influence in Iraq.
38% : The spectacle was a show of force intended not just to mark an anniversary, but also to signal the paramilitaries' recovery from the setback dealt by the assassinations of Soleimani and Mohandis, and the groups' determination to push back against the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
34% : Days after the drone strike killed Soleimani and Mohandis, more than 100 U.S. service members seeking shelter in bunkers suffered brain injuries when Iran fired retaliatory missiles at a base in western Iraq.
22% : Then-President Donald Trump said the strike against Soleimani aimed to "stop a war" and was based on intelligence that the commander was plotting imminent attacks against American interests.

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