New US threats to Iraq leave its PM in tight spot

BAGHDAD • Enraged by near-daily attacks on its interests in Iraq, Washington has threatened to close its embassy in Baghdad in a blow to a premier seen as a bulwark against Iran.

Iraq has long been caught in a tug-of-war between its allies Iran and the US, rendered rockier by Washington's "maximum pressure" policy against Teheran since 2018.

In a new escalation, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Iraqi President Barham Saleh last week to deliver an ultimatum, Iraqi and foreign officials told Agence France-Presse.

Unless Iraq's government puts an end to the rockets raining down on US military and diplomatic sites, Washington would shutter its embassy and recall its troops, the sources said.

"The Americans aren't just angry. They're really, really, really angry," one Iraqi official said.

The US still has hundreds of diplomats in its mission at the high-security Green Zone in Baghdad and around 3,000 troops based in three bases across the country.

Since 2019, dozens of rockets and improvised explosives have targeted these sites, with US and Iraqi officials blaming Teheran-backed factions including Kataeb Hizbollah.

Washington has twice retaliated with strikes on Kataeb Hizbollah in Iraq and threatened earlier this year to bomb more than 120 further sites if the rocket attacks cost American lives, a top Iraqi official told AFP.

The frustration failed to ease even after Mr Mustafa al-Kadhemi, seen as Western-leaning, took office as Premier in May.

The US declined to comment on Mr Pompeo's latest call, but a State Department official told AFP that "Iran-backed groups launching rockets at our embassy are a danger not only to us, but to the government of Iraq".

Fresh in the minds of Iraqi officials and armed groups is the US drone strike in January that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq's state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi.

The new US threats seem to have deepened the growing rift between factions loyal to Iran and those less willing to enter into a full confrontation with Washington. Influential cleric and political leader Moqtada Sadr took to Twitter last week to call for "the creation of a security, military and parliamentary committee to investigate" the rocket attacks. Within minutes, Mr Kadhemi and other top government figures endorsed the recommendation.

But the hardliners, too, are organising. A half-dozen previously unheard-of groups have claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on the US and even threatened the United Nations in recent months. Iraqi sources say Iran has been gathering the most hardline among its Iraqi allies into these new formations.

These reconstituted groups see Mr Kadhemi as Washington's man in Baghdad.

"They're sending a message from Iran to the US: the recent political developments have changed nothing. We can still hit you hard, and no leader can implement your agenda in Iraq," said a source from Iraq's Shi'ite political network.

A US withdrawal could hand the Prime Minister's rivals an unintended propaganda win, a Western diplomat in Baghdad told AFP. "If Washington follows through and withdraws its people, these groups will be able to brag that they kicked the Americans out of Iraq at little cost," the official said.

Mr Kadhemi's downfall, Western diplomats and analysts said, could be a nightmare for Iraq's stability. "If the US really closes its embassy, it will leave Kadhemi in a very weak and dangerous position, opening the door for militias to expand and maybe take extreme action against the state," said Mr Ali Mamouri, an analyst.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE