Fayyadh’s two-week promise on the PMF law expires this week, days before the Americans go

The National reported on 23 August that PMF chairman Falah al-Fayyadh said Prime Minister al-Zaidi was expected to submit the PMF law to parliament “soon, following the completion of certain amendments”, citing the state-run Iraqi News Agency. Al-Fayyadh’s own formulation, via INA, was tighter: “The [new] PMF law covering service, retirement, and organisational structure will be submitted within the next two weeks.” The procedural runway is short. The Washington Institute recorded that parliament conducted the final reading of an earlier draft on 16 July, meaning it could be brought to a vote at any future session. The bill’s history is contested even among sympathetic sources: Shafaq News reported in early August 2026 that the legislation has been stalled since March 2025, when then-prime minister al-Sudani withdrew it amid disagreements that repeatedly cost quorum, while the Indian Council of World Affairs dates the withdrawal to 27 August 2025.

The pressure runs in both directions. The National quoted a single unnamed official warning that the law “will give the PMF a permanent, legally protected status as a parallel armed institution inside the Iraqi state” and calling it “a dangerous move”; that is one anonymous voice, and should be read as such. Shafaq has reported wounded PMF personnel and families of the dead staging a sit-in outside the National Pension Authority in Baghdad, demanding entitlements equivalent to other security institutions — the constituency the service-and-retirement provisions are written for. On the external side, then-speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani confirmed in August 2025 that the United States had clearly expressed its rejection of the bill in its present form, and Shafaq reports that Coordination Framework figures blame “US interference” for the delay. The Washington Institute put the force at 238,000 fighters, over seventy factions and a $3.6 billion annual budget in August 2025.

Assessment: The sequencing is the story. If the draft lands before 30 September, it lands while Washington still has troops on the ground and a reason to spend leverage; if it slips past, the most-cited source of American pressure has physically left. EPIC’s ISHM tracker for 13-20 August captures the same asymmetry in one room: Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf publicly praising Iraqi armed factions as a transnational asset, while Speaker Haybat al-Halbousi asked Tehran for passage rights for Iraqi state oil through Hormuz. Two cautions. Al-Fayyadh’s fortnight is a promise, not a filing — the deadline is his, not parliament’s. And the 238,000 and $3.6bn figures come from a US institution arguing for a severe American response, dated a year ago; treat them as an advocacy estimate until an Iraqi budget-law number replaces them. Separately, Al-Monitor’s Iraq index has carried teaser references to US and Saudi strikes on Iran-backed militias and a nearing disarmament deadline for armed groups. This desk could not verify either from primary sources and does not report them as fact.