Iraq's future at stake after Soleimani's killing

Iraq is once more returning to the center of conflicts. This is particularly true after the US killed the Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraqi capital Baghdad.

This came at a time the fragile state tried to pull itself out of the destructive consequences of the US invasion of it and the occupation by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group of some of its cities.

Iraq suffers from sectarian divisions, extending from the bottom of society, and reaching the head of power, while Iran succeeded in penetrating Iraq on two levels, which is considered a dangerous dimension that threatens the security of Baghdad in what may be called a period "after the killing of Soleimani."

Soleimani was killed, at dawn on January 3, 2020, in a raid by a US drone that targeted the car he was traveling near Baghdad International Airport, after arriving in the Iraqi capital.

In the first reaction on the ground by groups loyal to Iran, the Hezbollah Brigades militia in Iraq warned the security forces against approaching US bases starting on Sunday, January 5, 2019, in a veiled threat to target these bases.

The brigades said in a statement, "The security services must move away from the bases a distance of 1000 meters, starting from Sunday evening. The leaders of the security services should abide by the safety rules of their personnel, and not allow them to be made human shields."

This threat came in conjunction with the fall of two missiles in the vicinity of the US embassy in the Green Zone in Iraq.

Iraq’s position on the process

The level of the Iraqi reaction to the process varied according to the party and its relationship with Iran, as the Iranian-backed Shiite side described it as a brutal attack, while the originally Kurdish president, Barham Salih, contented himself with demanding restraint, and called the Shiite Islamic Dawa Party to reassess the relationship with the United States of America.

On the executive level, the Iraqi authorities opened an investigation with an intelligence officer at Baghdad International Airport and the crew of the plane that carried the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qassem Soleimani, to the Iraqi capital, and also arrested two Syrians and an Iraqi.

While the Iraqis celebrated the killing of Soleimani, the PMF and its loyalists are trying to show objections to the killing, demanding a halt to American intervention in Iraq, and confronting the survival of American forces and citizens on their lands.

It is also a position expressed by the spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, on Saturday 4 January 2020, saying: “Iraq issued a decision restricting the work of the American forces in the country.”

Khalaf described the last American raid during which Soleimani was killed as a "stab in the back", stressing that the American operations in the country "must be carried out with the consent of Iraq."

Battlefield

This process is the first direct clash between America and Iran after months of indirect confrontations and a war of words accompanied by assurances from both parties that no one is seeking direct war.

Political analyst Wathiq Al Hashemi says: “The American attack means that Iraq has effectively turned into a declared and exposed arena for the war between Tehran and Washington."

At the level of the government crisis, he added, "the attack will make it more difficult to reach a consensus on the shape of the new government and who will head it."

"Whoever was resilient before the recent escalation will now be more radical," the Iraqi expert said in an interview with DW Arabia, meaning Iraqi politicians affiliated with both Iran and the United States.