While the Iraqis' Western allies fighting the Islamic State (IS) are demanding that the Iraqi government dissolve the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), the PMU factions are expanding their influence in the Iraqi state. 

In his meeting with Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani on Dec. 2, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the Iraqi government to dismantle all militias, including the PMU. Macron said, “It is essential that there is gradual demilitarization, in particular of the PMU that established itself in the last few years in Iraq, and that all militias be gradually dismantled.”

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in a speech before the defense forum of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on Dec. 2 that he sent a message to the leader of the Iranian Quds Brigades, Qasem Soleimani, and warned him and the Iranian leadership of any potential attacks from the pro-Iran PMU on US interests in Iraq.

On Oct. 2, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, following a joint meeting with the Iraqi and Saudi leaders, said that now the war on IS is over, Iranian-backed militias and their advisers must go home.