Since the Iran war started three weeks ago, neighbouring Iraq has found itself caught in the middle.
Along with drones, jets and missiles criss-crossing its airspace, Iraq has faced internal conflict as pro-Iran militias target US and European troops.
Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region hosts US-led coalition troops, and its capital, Erbil, is home to a major US consulate complex, making it a target of the war in the Middle East, triggered by the joint US-Israeli war on Iran.
“Iraq has fast become a main front in this war mainly due to the attacks by Iran-tied Iraqi Shia militias and the counterattacks by the US-Israeli alliance,” says Mohammed A Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “At the pace it’s going, it threatens to destabilise Iraq.”
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Joel Wing, author of the authoritative Musings on Iraq blog, says the Iran war poses an “existential threat” to Iraq on the economic front.
Oil exports account for 90 per cent of the state’s revenues, funding millions of civil servants’ salaries. While Baghdad reopened a northern pipeline since the war started and reached a deal with Tehran to allow its tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, it still cannot sell enough oil to pay its bills.
“Baghdad was already having problems paying all of its public workers due to low oil prices,” Wing says. “If that increases, there will be protests by civil servants very quickly.
“Whenever the war ends, Iraq will likely be in an economic crisis because its oil exports were greatly affected.”
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On the military front, the US and Israel have targeted pro-Iran militias operating under the self-styled Islamic Resistance of Iraq. These groups, most notably Kataib Hizbullah, attacked US troops before this conflict.
“They recently killed the spokesman for Kataib Hizbullah and either killed or wounded its secretary general,” Wing says. “If other leadership elements were taken out, that would be a dramatic escalation because the Resistance is also part of the political establishment and part of the ruling coalition.”
European troops based in Iraqi Kurdistan, where they were training local forces under the US-led coalition assembled to fight Isis in the mid-2010s, have also come under repeated fire.
Spain announced plans on Wednesday to relocate its troops. Madrid’s move follows a deliberate attack on a base hosting Italian troops in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Erbil on March 12th and a drone strike shortly after killing a French soldier there.
“It’s obvious that the Iran war is already pushing European countries toward a partial drawdown, repositioning or at least a reconfiguration of their troop presence in Iraqi Kurdistan,” says Federico Borsari, a defence expert at the Centre for European Policy Analysis.
European withdrawals won’t necessarily become permanent.
“I suspect that the Europeans would return to Iraq to complete their mission,” says Wing. “This is the first time they’ve really been targeted, and there’s no reason why they would continue to face attacks after the war is over.”
“The [Islamic] Resistance talks about all foreign troops leaving Iraq, but they’re really only concerned about the Americans.”
Salih sees this as a turning point for the European presence.
“They are seeing hostile action from militias that are simultaneously beholden to Iranian orders but also part of the Iraqi security forces,” he said. “So, this will put the Europeans in the awkward position of not knowing how best to deal with the situation.
“Retaliate or leave? Both have their costs and consequences.”
