Security issues aside, Washington is letting Baghdad know that it can and perhaps will reduce its footprint

Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi received a phone call that he had been dreading since he took the premiership in May. On the line was U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said Washington was considering moving its embassy in Baghdad either to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, or to the al-Asad airbase.

The relocation, Pompeo said, was a matter of security. Attacks by Iran-backed militias had been on the rise since the U.S. killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, earlier this year, but rocket attacks intensified dramatically this summer.

But the prospect of moving isn’t anchored solely in safety concerns. The U.S. is signalling that it is fed up with Iraqi security structures that house militant organisations loyal to Iran that often serve Tehran’s interests. It also reflects Washington’s desire to scale down its presence in the Middle East, and exemplifies the Iraqi government’s struggle to play the zero-sum game against Iran-backed militias that the U.S. wants it to play.

Close Calls

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is situated in the Green Zone, a fortified compound of foreign diplomatic missions and Iraqi government buildings. During the global war on terror and the Iraq war, it was the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world. Yet it has always been a rich target for hostile attacks, most recently by Iran, which is highly influential among Iraq’s Shiite militias. The attacks on the U.S. embassy in the Green Zone have been almost too many to count, increasing in frequency to almost once or twice a week.

For the most part, the Katyusha rockets fired into the Green Zone have failed to land on target, not imposing any casualties or major damage. However, there have been some close calls. The Iraqi public itself is also becoming cause for concern. Following months of nationwide demonstrations, anti-U.S. protesters breached the embassy’s walls and damaged embassy property in December 2019. Among the participants were Shiite militiamen who didn’t even bother to take off their uniforms.

Clearly, the U.S. can deploy more of its armed forces to deal with the threat – and, in fact, has at various points throughout the year – but Washington has made clear that embroiling itself in Middle Eastern wars is no longer part of its global strategy. Since March, the U.S. has authorized a drawdown of U.S. forces from 5,200 troops to 3,000 and departed a slew of important bases in Camp Taji, the Qayyarah airfield, al-Taqaddum and al-Qaim.

As the military reduced its footprint, the State Department followed suit. The U.S. Mission in Baghdad reduced the size of its staff again in May 2020, keeping a smaller team of State Department personnel and the chief of mission to reduce security risks.

Inducing Behaviour

Washington is thus considering whether it will move the embassy to Iraqi Kurdistan. It already has a consulate in Erbil and is building a larger, more secure compound to be completed in 2022. The move is somewhat sensible; Erbil has been subjected to fewer attacks than Baghdad, thanks to increased protection from Kurdish peshmergas and increased distance from militia hotspots. But it’s not without its problems, and it’s not entirely clear that it will stay so safe.

As soon as Iraqi militias caught wind of the U.S. consideration to move, they conducted strikes on a U.S. coalition base near the Erbil International Airport to send the message that unless the U.S. pulls out of Iraq entirely, Iran-backed groups will target American personnel wherever they are.

Moreover, relocating to Kurdistan would aggravate a decades-long ethnic and financial dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government. It would also require additional financial assistance to the KRG, something that would be seen as preferential treatment in highly sensitive matters of political autonomy and budget allocation