President Donald Trump put the blame squarely on Iran after protesters in Iraq stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad Tuesday, further escalating U.S.-Iran tensions as the two countries jockey for influence in Iraq. The embassy attack came in response to deadly U.S. airstrikes Sunday on the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia group Kataib Hezbollah, which were an act of retaliation after a Kataib Hezbollah rocket attack killed a U.S. contractor and injured American service members. “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible.” A few hours later, the president seemingly called for the Iraqi people to overthrow the Iranians, writing in a separate tweet, “To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!”
Protesters broke into the heavily-guarded embassy compound Tuesday and proceeded to light fires, shatter security cameras, and cover walls with anti-American graffiti before retreating, as U.S. diplomats and staffers remained inside a safe room within the embassy. (The the chief of the US mission in Iraq, Matthew Tueller, was away on a scheduled vacation.) Thousands of protesters made their way into Iraq’s typically off-limits “Green Zone” surrounding the embassy, seemingly undeterred by Iraqi security forces, where they chanted “Death to America,” “No, no, no America,” and “No, no, no Trump.” The situation is still developing, and Kataib Hezbollah—who were behind the embassy attack, along with supporters and other Iranian-backed militia groups—has vowed to continue besieging the embassy until the U.S. moves out of Iraq. “Americans are unwanted in Iraq. They are a source of evil and we want them to leave,” Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, told Reuters.
The U.S. embassy protests came after months of heightened conflict between the U.S. and Iran. The Trump administration reinstated crippling sanctions on Iran after pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement, prompting outraged responses from the defiant Iranian government, who have begun taking steps to eschew its nuclear commitments under the 2015 deal. Now, the battle between the two countries is playing out in Iraq, where the escalating attacks have raised the specter of a potential proxy war. The “Iran-orchestrated violence [is] a response to U.S. eco[nomic] warfare,” Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted Tuesday, noting that Trump “needs to be ready to go to war w[ith] Iran or provide a diplomatic off-ramp, linking partial sanctions relief to Iran’s regional, nuclear, domestic actions.” “Latter path clearly preferable,” Haass added.
As Trump’s tweet calling for the Iraqi people to defy Iran suggests, the U.S. government is clearly hoping for Iraqi support in their escalating feud with Iran, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated to Iraqi leadership Tuesday that the U.S. personnel in Iraq “are there to support a sovereign and independent Iraq.” There has been broad discontentment among Iraqis with Iran, as protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets in recent months in protests targeting Iran and its influence within the Iraqi government. But as Trump tries to rally the Iraqis against Iran further, his strategy may be backfiring. Sunday’s U.S. airstrike, which killed 24 militiamen and wounded more than 50, has begun to turn the Iraqis against the U.S., as Iraqi leadership decried the airstrike as “terrorism” and a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” Beyond inspiring retaliation from Iran, then, the airstrike may also inadvertently increasingly isolate the U.S. in the region, as Iraqi allies become disillusioned with the U.S. while war with Iran becomes increasingly likely. “What the U.S. intended [with the airstrike] and what the U.S. will get could be two very different things,” Ranj Alaaldin, director of the Proxy Wars Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar, told the New York Times.