BAGHDAD — When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down with Iraqi officials in Baghdad last week as tensions mounted between America and Iran he de
BAGHDAD — When U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down with Iraqi officials in Baghdad last week as tensions mounted between America and Iran, he delivered a nuanced message: If you’re not going to stand with us, stand aside.
The message, relayed to The Associated Press by two Iraqi government officials, underscores Iraq’s delicate position: Its government is allied with both sides of an increasingly contentious confrontation.
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As tensions escalate, there are concerns that Baghdad could once again get caught in the middle, just as it is on the path to recovery. The country hosts more than 5,000 U. S. troops, and is home to powerful Iranian-backed militias, some of whom want those U. S. forces to leave.
‘The big question is how Iraqi leaders will deal with (their) national interests in a country where loyalty to external powers is widespread at the expense of their own nation,’ Iraqi political analyst Watheq al-Hashimi said. ‘If the state cannot put these [Iranian-backed militias] under control, Iraq will become an arena for an Iranian-American armed conflict.’
Despite the escalation of rhetoric by both sides, President Donald Trump has said he doesn’t want a war with Iran and has even said he is open to dialogue. But tension remains high, in part given the region’s fraught history.
For Iraq to be a theater for proxy wars is not new. The Shi’ite-majority country lies on the fault line between Shiite Iran and the mostly Sunni Arab world, led by powerhouse Saudi Arabia, and has long been a battlefield in which the Saudi-Iran rivalry for regional supremacy played out.
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During America’s eight-year military presence that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U. S. troops and Iranian-backed militiamen fought pitched battles around the country, and scores of U. S. troops were killed or wounded by the militia forces armed with sophisticated Iranian-made weapons.
American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of Iraq to help battle the Islamic State group after it seized vast areas in the north and west of the country, including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. A U. S.-led coalition provided crucial air support as Iraqi forces regrouped and drove IS out in a costly three-year campaign.
