These protests are about domestic politics and a country torn between two allies.
, Iraq's powerful western neighbor and fellow Shiite-majority nation, and the United States, bonded by the fight against the Islamic State and U.S. funds that helped stand up the government and keep it standing.
Last Friday, an American civilian contractor was killed by rocket fire at K1, an Iraqi base that houses U.S. troops outside Kirkuk, in Iraq's north. The attack, which injured several Iraqi and other U.S. troops, was blamed on a pro-Iranian militia called Kata'ib Hezbollah, or KH. Two days later, the U.S. military struck back, killing at least 25 members at five sites in Iraq and Syria.
The Trump administration said it was a defensive response and a strong signal to Iran to leave U.S. personnel alone, even through proxy forces. But those U.S. strikes infuriated many Iraqi officials, those aligned with Iran and Shiite militias. U.S. forces are in the country to train Iraqi troops and fight ISIS together, and they saw U.S. strikes on KH on Iraqi territory as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
That contrasts with the violence that those same security forces used to keep the anti-government protesters out in October and November, deploying live ammunition and, at times, killing protesters. "The Iraqi government was never going to let Iranian proxies take over the U.S. embassy," he added. But they had to let them get far enough to let off steam and to dissipate some of the anger in those ranks.Instead, as it has done for months now -- since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and implemented a sanctions regime far more biting than any before -- it pokes at the U.S.
Turmoil in Iraq and scenes of smoke and fire outside the U.S. embassy -- the U.S. seal itself stolen from the embassy gates -- are all a welcome distraction for Tehran from Iraqis' deep anger over its tentacles in their country.
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