Baghdad, both Iraqis and foreigners, roiled by US threats to close its embassy

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The consequences of US warnings to the Iraqi government about attacks by pro-Iranian militias on US and Counter-ISIS Coalition targets continued on Monday to roil Baghdad, both foreigners and Iraqis alike.

Over the past week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has twice warned senior Iraqi officials that the US would close its embassy, if the attacks did not end.

The US has also said that whatever decision is made regarding its embassy in Baghdad, it will continue diplomatic operations in its consulate in Erbil.

Pompeo first issued his warning last Tuesday, when he spoke with Iraqi President Barham Salih, The Washington Post explained in a story on Monday that clarified earlier reports.

The second occasion was a discussion between Pompeo and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Saturday.

“News of the warning” from Pompeo “sent shockwaves across Baghdad,” the Post report on Monday said.

It also stated explicitly that Pompeo had warned Salih strongly that the closure of the US embassy would lead to a US attack on the militias responsible for the attacks. Its closure would be followed by a “strong and violent” response against them, three Iraqi officials told the Post.

In Saturday’s call with Kadhimi, “Pompeo went further,” the Post reported, telling the Iraqi prime minister “that the US will initiate plans to withdraw from the embassy.”

Read More: US will close Baghdad embassy—but keep Erbil consulate open

Indeed, “a small-scale evacuation” of the embassy followed their telephone conversation, “in what Iraqi “officials saw as a statement of intent,” The Baghdad Post reported.

Pompeo also warned of “economic retaliation, including the threat of sanctions and limits on dollar transactions, including withholding badly-needed aid through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for Iraq,” Al Arabiya reported.

The process of closing the embassy would take around 90 days, which, implicitly, gives Baghdad time to address the US complaints.

Iraqi Responses to US Warning

Iraqi political figures responded immediately to Pompeo’s warning. The bulk of them affirmed their opposition to the attacks that prompted his threats. However, it remains to be seen whether they have the ability and the will to stop the assaults.

Ironically, the first response came from the anti-American cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who, on Wednesday, the day after Pompeo’s discussion with Salih, called for an end to attacks on foreigners, charging they were “weakening Iraq and its people.” Other Iraqi politicians followed suit.

Read More: US warns Iraq on Iranian-backed militias

Yet the attacks did not stop, and Pompeo warned Kadhimi directly on Saturday.

Nonetheless, two days later, on Monday, Katyusha rockets were fired at the Baghdad International Airport, which, in addition to serving as a civilian airport, houses facilities for the Counter-ISIS Coalition. One rocket hit a nearby house, killing five women and children and injuring two others.

Read More: Rocket attack hits house near Baghdad airport, killing five Iraqis

Kadhimi reacted strongly. According to a statement from the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Center, Kadhimi directed “all security services” to “intensify their intelligence efforts to curb these crimes that terrify citizens” and ordered “an immediate investigation into the incident and the prosecution of the perpetrators, regardless of their affiliations, to receive the most severe penalties.”

For his part, Iraqi President Salih met separately with Iraq’s National Security Adviser, Qasim al-Araji, as well as the Foreign Minister, Fuad Hussein, who returned on Sunday from a visit to Tehran, in which he sought to impress on the Iranians the need to rein in the militias responsible for the attacks.

In his meetings with Araji and Hussein, Salih stressed the need to protect the security of diplomatic missions, as, according to international law, it is Iraq’s responsibility to do so.

Araji also met on Monday with the US ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller, to discuss Pompeo’s warnings about closing the US embassy.

The Iraqi Parliament’s Foreign Relations announced on Monday that it would discuss the targeting of foreign diplomatic missions in Iraq, as well as the US threat of force. A committee member, Amer al-Fayez, stated that both were rejected, as Iraqi media reported.

In early January, following the US assassination of Gen. Qasim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraq’s parliament called for the expulsion of US troops from the country. The question now is whether they really meant it—and under circumstances in which the US has said it will retaliate severely against those responsible for the attacks, while withdrawing its own economic aid, as well as its support for international economic assistance to Iraq.

Foreigners’ Response

If the US does close the embassy in Baghdad, “the majority” of European and Arab embassies would follow suit, if attacks on diplomatic missions continued, the Iraqi press reported. A senior figure in one, relatively moderate, Shi’a party, al-Hikma (wisdom) warned,“Diplomatic missions have said they will reduce their presence, if the US closes the embassy.”

Some 15 diplomats are meeting at the British embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday to demand that Iraq protect diplomatic missions, many of which are located, along with the US embassy, in the capital’s “Green Zone.” The US ambassador is to attend the meeting.

Kadhimi is seeking to enlist US allies in an effort to keep the US embassy open. Italy’s Defense Minister, Lorenzo Guerini, was in Baghdad on Monday, before traveling later that day to Erbil, where he will meet with senior Kurdish officials on Tuesday.

In his meeting with Guerini, Kadhimi explained, "The Iraqi government is facing a serious challenge today, represented by uncontrolled weapons that threaten security and stability.” He also stated that "the security services are working hard to enforce the law, protect citizens, enhance the security of diplomatic missions, and prosecute outlaw groups.”

What does the US intend?

It is “unclear,” if Pompeo’s warnings are “a ploy to force a crackdown on Iraq’s powerful militias, or the first step in a sweeping strategic move to end a 17-year post-war US presence in Iraq,” the British paper, The Guardian, said on Monday.

The end of America’s diplomatic presence in Baghdad would certainly mark a major shift in US policy, but it would not necessarily end US military support for the fight against ISIS, and US defense officials have said that mission will continue, at least for now.

Moreover, even if the US transferred its diplomatic operations from Baghdad to Erbil, it could always return, if the Iraqi government brought the militias under control.

“The US could continue to support counter-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria from Erbil,” Nicholas Heras of Washington DC’s Institute for the Study of War, told Kurdistan 24, “as well as provide support to the humanitarian mission for post-ISIS areas of northern Iraq.”

However, “moving the US ambassador to Erbil would be a big blow to Kadhimi at a critical juncture,” Heras added, while it “would make it more difficult for the US to influence political events on the ground” in areas lying to the south of Iraqi Kurdistan—i.e. most of Iraq.

The White House is divided, The Guardian suggested, between a group that is disappointed in Kadhimi’s failure to resist strongly enough the Iranian-backed militias and another group that, given Iraq’s geography, believes his ability to do so is invariably limited.

“The rocket attacks are a trigger for a longer standing and broader issue: the US administration feels that it has invested billions and many lives in Iraq and got little in return,” a former senior European Union diplomat, Clarisse Pasztory, who long served in Iraq, told The Guardian.

“Instead, Iran benefitted. Trump thinks transactionally and doesn’t swallow conventional wisdom. He wants Iraq to either show that it is firmly with the US,” she continued, “or else to end what Trump sees as a charade.”

Thus, just what the outcome will be of this phase of US diplomacy, remains to be seen. Above all, it would seem to depend on how successful Kadhimi will be in stopping the militia attacks and what the US will judge sufficient to allow it to maintain its diplomatic presence in Baghdad.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie