US declines to blame Iran for assassination attempt against Iraqi prime minister

by · Washington Examiner

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team declined to blame Iran for a recent assassination attempt against Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, citing the need for U.S. officials to “defer to the Iraqis” probing the Sunday assault.

“We are going to defer to the Iraqis for the progress of that investigation,” said Department of State spokesman Ned Price. “We've seen a number of attacks that have ... had links to Iran-backed groups, but when it comes to this attack, we're going to let the investigation play out.”

The drone attack on Kadhimi’s residence took place just days after an Iranian announcement that U.S. and Iranian officials will return to Vienna for “indirect nuclear” talks, raising questions about whether those long-stalled negotiations will resume. Price’s public commentary about the attack was tuned to the deeper struggle to counter Iranian influence in Iraq while avoiding Iraqi nationalist backlash against the United States.

“Prime Minister Kadhimi represents not only the head of government, but he represents the State of Iraq, and he is the commander in chief of Iraqi security forces," Price said. "And, therefore, we believe that this was an attack not only on him but also on the sovereignty and stability of the Iraqi state.”

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An Iranian security official responded to the drone attack by claiming that “foreign think tanks” are responsible for "creating and supporting terrorist and occupying forces.” Iran has acquired military and political power within Iraq in recent years, in part due to the role of Tehran-aligned Shia militias that mobilized against the Sunni-oriented Islamic State terrorists who rampaged across Syria and Iraq in 2014.

Two years later, an Iraqi prime minister incorporated the militias into the Iraqi government’s armed forces in an apparent bid to bring the fighters under Baghdad’s control, but their deference to Iran was dramatized when a senior militia commander died in the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

A bloc of pro-Iran Shia parliamentarians responded to the Soleimani strike by passing a non-binding resolution that called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, but incoming prime minister Kadhimi has mitigated that pressure for a rapid American exit. U.S. troops are in Iraq as part of an international mission to defeat the Islamic State. However, rather than counter Iran-controlled militias. Kadhimi has tried to crack down on the wayward militias, including the Kataib Hezbollah outfit that has fired rockets at U.S. bases, but he was forced to back down when the groups threatened his home after he arrested several militant officials.

Kadhimi’s inability to restrain the Iranian-aligned militias has created friction between Baghdad and Washington. And, given U.S. financial support for the Iraqi government, it has put the U.S. in the position of observing and even subsidizing Iran’s ambitions to dominate Iraq.

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“The president has issued a very clear instruction to his national security team — that we are to provide every form of appropriate assistance,” Price said. “We reserve the right, in coordination with our partners, in this case the government of Iraq, to respond to aggression at a time and place and with the means of our choosing. But again, before we speak about a response, we will let the Iraqi investigation proceed.”