Iraq adamant it won’t be dragged into US-Iran war

Iraq president: Enough of wars, enough of conflict. Iraqis do not want to see this country yet again turn into a zone of proxy conflict.

RUDAW – Iraqi followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr protest in the capital Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square against involvement in any US-Iran conflict.

Although the latest standoff between the US and Iran is unlikely to result in direct conflict any time soon, such heightened tensions could have serious ramifications elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq – a nation tired of being treated as a proxy battlefield.

 On May 15, the US State Department ordered the evacuation of all non-emergency staff from its US embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Erbil, citing an unspecified Iranian threat. 
Then, on the night of May 19, a rocket struck near the US embassy compound in Baghdad, adding to fears of an escalation between the US and Iran.  

Iraqi officials of various different political stripes have uniformly opposed the prospect of war, arguing it will likely drag their country into yet another destabilizing proxy conflict. 

Barham Salih, Iraq’s president reiterated this view in a May 20 interview.   “Iraq has been living through hell for the last four decades,” he said. “Enough of wars, enough of conflict. And certainly, Iraqis do not want to see this country yet again turn into a zone of proxy conflict.”

Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric who controls the biggest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, even warned a US-Iran war “would mark the end of Iraq”.   Any party that supports conflict between Washington and Tehran “would be an enemy of the Iraqi people”, Sadr said, as it would once again make the country “a scene for conflict”.

Sadr has consistently rejected all foreign forces and their proxies operating in Iraq, be they American, Iranian, or Turkish.  On May 24, Sadr’s followers held a gigantic anti-war protest in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, railing against the prospect of Iraq becoming a war zone in a wider US-Iran conflict. 
Sadr is not the only prominent Iraqi figure foretelling doom. Hadi al-Amiri, the Shiite paramilitary leader whose list came second in Iraq’s 2018 parliamentary election, also issued a statement firmly opposing the war.