Thousands of supporters of pro-Iran Iraqi paramilitaries gathered in Baghdad on Sunday to commemorate the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant. The demonstration took on the appearance of a show of force, accompanied by slogans like “No to America” or “Vengeance”. In Tahrir Square, these supporters of Hachd al-Chaabi, a coalition of paramilitaries now integrated into the Iraqi state, attacked the American “great Satan” and the one they accuse of being his “agent” in Iraq, the Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kazimi.
On January 3, 2020, on the orders of President Donald Trump, a drone attack at Baghdad International Airport sprayed the two vehicles aboard which were Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, as well as Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis, the commander of Hachd al-Chaabi. This strike had raised fears of an open conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, enemies for 40 years. A year later, the situation is still as explosive in Iraq where Washington and Tehran are acting powers.
A divided country
Iraq is more polarized than ever, between pro-Iranians who no longer hesitate to threaten the state and its leaders by name and authorities who have neither the political weight nor the military strength to confront them. On Sunday, after a candlelight vigil at Baghdad airport, at the very place where the Iranian general and his Iraqi right-hand man were killed, supporters of Hachd al-Chaabi converged on Tahrir Square where they honored their “Martyrs” and denounced “the American occupier”.
For months in 2019, the Iraqis conspired in Tahrir, from the “Turkish restaurant”, a huge derelict building, the Iraqi power and its Iranian “godfather”. In some demonstrations of the “October Revolution”, portraits of Soleimani were even trampled on. Today, from the top of the same restaurant, a giant poster of Soleimani and Mouhandis has covered another. It touted an upcoming museum of the “October Revolution”, under the “high patronage of Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kazimi”. The man is not present, but his name is chanted. “Kazimi, coward! Agent of the Americans ”, repeat in chorus the thousands of demonstrators dressed in black, some waving signs“ Go out USA ”.
3,000 American soldiers are still deployed in Iraq
“We have come to say no to America and to any other occupier who would like to defile our land,” Oum Mariam told Agence France-Presse. South of Baghdad, in several towns, including Najaf where Abu Mehdi al-Mouhandis is buried, supporters, some in tears, paid homage to the two “martyrs”. Almost 3,000 American troops are deployed in Iraq. A vote by the Iraqi Parliament to expel these soldiers, announced in the clash of the strike of January 3, 2020, went unanswered. In November 2020, the United States nevertheless announced that 500 troops will have withdrawn from Iraq on January 15, leaving only 2,500.
A year ago, the braced positions of Washington and Tehran raised fears of open conflict in Iraq. And this country is holding its breath until Donald Trump leaves the White House on January 20. On Thursday Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that in Iraq “Israeli agent provocateurs are planning attacks on Americans” to put “Trump in a bind with a fabricated casus belli”.
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