Fagin returns to Baghdad as PMF law comes back onto the agenda

BAGHDAD — Steven H. Fagin has returned to Baghdad as chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Mission in Iraq, replacing Joshua Harris, as legislation on the Popular Mobilization Forces — which Fagin publicly warned against during his last posting — returns to the political agenda.

The embassy said Fagin “brings extensive regional experience that will further strengthen the U.S.-Iraq relationship.” He was most recently ambassador to Yemen, having presented credentials to the Presidential Leadership Council in 2022, and previously served in Baghdad as chargé d’affaires and deputy chief of mission, as consul general in Erbil, and earlier as head of the embassy’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement office.

As chargé d’affaires last year, Fagin warned that legislating the PMF and its governing body could institutionalise Iranian influence and strengthen armed groups, and that it posed a threat to Iraqi sovereignty. The bill was withdrawn in August 2025 after Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers walked out of a second reading. It is now being pressed from several directions: Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada named a PMF law among the 10 conditions it set last week for engaging with the weapons policy, a campaign group began an open-ended sit-in in Basra on Sept. 1 demanding it, and the Coordination Framework listed it this week among the legislation it considers urgent.

Harris took the post in September 2025 and represented Washington in talks on security, counterterrorism and economic cooperation, telling Nouri al-Maliki’s office last month that the U.S. valued his role in supporting stability.