A video circulating from @Abdullahmonaifi appears to show Iraq's Minister of Communications receiving Houthi leaders in Baghdad, and praising them.
"Your strikes are a source of pride, and your missiles, by God the Almighty."
A sitting minister of a state that calls itself a partner of the Gulf, telling representatives of a designated terrorist organisation that the missiles fired at Saudi cities make him proud.
If you are shocked, you have not been paying attention.
The Houthis have had a bureau in Iraq since 2023. Ahmed al-Sharafi, known as Abu Idris, operates as their representative in the country. There is a deputy covering Babil and Musayyib, a man running ideological work, another running the money. The office sat openly in Baghdad's Jadriyah before moving to Jurf al-Sakhar, which is Kata'ib Hezbollah ground. Al-Sharafi's brief includes managing relations with Iran's Iraqi factions.
That is not a rumour. It is documented, and it has been sitting in plain sight for three years.
So the meeting is not the story. The infrastructure is.
Now set that beside what Baghdad tells its partners.
Last Friday national security adviser Qasim al-Araji confirmed that the committee handling the weapons of the Iran-backed militias has no fixed timeframe for finishing its work.
None.
And look at what that committee has delivered. One integration. The PKK's YBS in Sinjar. A small force in a Yazidi district in the far northwest, with no Iranian patronage protecting it and no bloc in parliament defending it.
Kataib Hezbollah. Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. Untouched!
That is not disarmament. That is a government moving against whoever cannot hurt it and stalling on everyone who can. A committee without a deadline is a committee built never to report.
And this stopped being an internal Iraqi matter some time ago.
This month a drone launched from Iraq forced Saudi Arabia to shut the East-West pipeline, taking up to four percent of global oil supply offline. Saudi intelligence expects further attacks on energy sites, ports and airports from Houthi and Iraqi groups operating under IRGC supervision.
One network. Several addresses. Sanaa fires at Riyadh, Iraqi groups hit the pipeline, and Tehran pays for neither.
So the demand on Baghdad is simple, and it is not new.
Disarm and dissolve the Iran-backed militias. Not integrate them on paper while leaving their chains of command intact. Close the Houthi presence on Iraqi soil and expel its representatives. Set a date, and meet it.
These are obligations Iraq accepted. They are not favours to Riyadh or Washington. They rest on the principle that a state holds a monopoly on force inside its own borders, and most Iraqis want exactly that. Ordinary Iraqis are not the obstacle here. The blocs that built the committee and own the militias are.
Being against the Houthis and against the Hashd is not two positions. It is one, because it is one network.
And a government whose ministers greet that network as heroes should stop expecting to be treated as a government.