Foreign Affairs: The assassination of Soleimani is a miserable end to the American-Iraqi relationship

The American Foreign Affairs magazine discussed the implications of the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Qassem Soleimani, a few days ago on the outskirts of Baghdad. And considered that this process constituted a major escalation in the conflict between the United States and Iran, but the blow that killed this strong leader may cause other losses, is the assassination of the relationship between the United States and Iraq.

And writer Emma Skye explained in an article published by the magazine that Iraq, which is allied with both the United States and Iran, is now finding itself a battleground between these two opponents, noting that the state of relations between Washington and Baghdad was fragile, even before the assassination of Soleimani last week.

This is evidenced by - according to the author - from the great satisfaction in Baghdad when the Iraqi forces were looking in the opposite direction while the supporters of the pro-Iranian militias penetrated the outer ring of the embassy, ​​burned American flags and looted guard posts before the American Marines repelled them with tear gas.

The writer said that this scene was difficult to imagine in 2009 when the US embassy opened its current facility on the banks of the Tigris River, the largest embassy for Washington in the world, and a symbol of the high hopes attached to relations between the two countries, after the United States' reputation recovered from the blow it suffered in the wake of The 2003 invasion.

Sectarian politics
However, the problem started in the aftermath of the 2010 elections - as the author says - when both the United States and Iran supported giving Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a second term, and although his coalition did not win the largest number of votes, al-Maliki, following his sectarian policies, created the conditions for the birth of the Islamic State From the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq, coinciding with the departure of American forces from the country after President Barack Obama failed to renew an agreement to keep it.

ISIS has benefited from this situation, and by 2014 it controlled more than a third of Iraq, and only then did the Obama administration withdraw its support from Maliki, and returned American forces to Iraq at the request of the then Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, to fight against ISIS, training and advice Iraqi forces.

The Hezbollah Brigades were among the forces that fought the Islamic State alongside the United States, which are Shiite militias backed by Iran, which were formally integrated into the Iraqi security forces through an umbrella known as the PMF.

But once IS defeated their common enemy, Hezbollah Brigades diverted their direction to American forces in Iraq, the writer said, and the Iraqi government was either unwilling or unable to prevent the group from firing rockets at American installations, as it did on December 27 First, when it killed an American contractor and wounded three US soldiers at the K1 military base in Kirkuk.

Air strikes
The United States responded to this attack with air strikes aimed at weakening the ability of the Hezbollah Brigades, but the raids killed more than 24 battalion fighters, and prompted militia supporters to launch an attack on the US embassy on New Year's Eve.

Three of the strongest leaders of the pro-Iranian militia in Iraq were joined by Hezbollah Brigade supporters outside the US embassy, ​​including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, commander of the Brigades, deputy leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, leader of the Asa’ib al-Haq forces, Qais Khazali, and the commander of the Badr Brigade, Hadi al-Amiri. Militia leaders ordered their supporters after two days of protests to return to their homes, claiming that they had received the support of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to push legislation to evacuate US forces from Iraq.

For his part, the caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the American air strikes on the headquarters of the crowd, and condemned the assassination of Soleimani and the engineer in a US raid by a drone near Baghdad airport, describing it as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and the conditions under which the American forces operate in the country.

Popular mobility
The writer indicated that Abdul-Mahdi's response to the protests at the American embassy was very different from his response to the anti-government protests that swept the country during the past three months, when tens of thousands of Iraqi youth took to the streets of Baghdad and other cities to express their frustration with government corruption and poor public services Unemployment and Iranian interference in a popular movement is the largest since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The demonstrators not only called for new leaders, but also demanded a reform of the post-2003 political system that institutionalized sectarianism and created a mafia regime, by which political elites controlled the country's oil wealth.

Although the demonstrations forced Abd al-Mahdi to resign with the passage of a new election law, this did not happen until after the killing of more than five hundred protesters and the injury of about 21,000.

The author suggested that the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran undermine the aspirations of Iraqi demonstrators demanding reform, as increased instability may prompt the government to take more measures to end the protests it sees as an existential threat, especially as the ruling political parties in Iraq have little incentive to make real changes On the system that you benefit from.

Iran's influence
Considering that Iran is still the most influential external actor in Iraq, with deep ties with Iraqi politicians and Shiite militias, it - as the author sees - considers that controlling this country is necessary for its survival, and that is that it is an economic "lung" to mitigate the impact of sanctions American, and safer, ground supplies critical to the Syrian regime and Lebanese Hezbollah.

After the events of last week - as the author says - the administration of President Donald Trump may decide that the American presence in Iraq is no longer possible, especially in the election year, especially as Trump has repeatedly announced his intention to withdraw American forces from the region.

As for many Americans, this moment evokes memories of the attacks on the American embassy and the slogans of “Death to America” in Tehran in 1979, when the Iranians invaded the American embassy there and took American diplomats hostage, and the memories of Benghazi are repeated in 2012, when Libyan gunmen killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens .

Although the United States closed its consulate in Basra and reduced the number of its employees in Baghdad and the consulate of Erbil for fear of increasing threats from the Iranian-backed militias, the closure of the embassy in Baghdad would be a miserable end to the American relationship with a country that invested a lot of blood and money, but Trump's assassination of Soleimani made that result more Likely.