The Israeli army arrests people of military service age in northern Gaza

What happened after the US embassy in Baghdad was targeted with two missiles that did not cause serious damage? There are expected political damages, and indications of “forced sorting” within the ruling “coordination framework.” A prominent Shiite leader says, “This does not mean that the American response is in doubt now, and it will not stop attacks by specific factions against Washington’s interests.”

During the past hours, various American circles repeated one phrase to the ears of Iraqi officials: “We have the right to self-defense.” The Iraqi Prime Minister heard it from the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, on the phone late on Friday night, and it was written by officials in the State Department and the embassy in Baghdad. , in frequent data.

According to the Pentagon statement, Austin identified the Al-Nujaba and Kataib Hezbollah factions as “responsible for most of the attacks against coalition personnel,” and that his country “reserves the right to respond” to the attacks.

Iraqi politicians interpreted “the Americans’ tone” as “an indication of a decisive response against two specific targets and not others,” but its nature is not yet clear, other than speculation that the expected operations will include “moving targets intending to launch missiles at American interests,” as happened in Abu Ghraib and Kirkuk. Jurf al-Sakhr, according to the Shiite leader, who requested to conceal his identity.

The leader said, via phone, to Asharq Al-Awsat, “These operations will not go further than that.” Because Washington “expects greater efforts from the government and the (coordination framework) to stop the attacks (…) and this is what will happen at the field level.”

The “decisive” American response

The hypothesis of a “decisive response” that the Americans repeated during the past hours gained additional confirmation, after Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani described the attack as a “terrorist act,” but warned of a “direct American attack without the government’s approval,” in what the Americans may interpret as a green light to respond.

The “Coordination Framework” issued a statement, after a meeting to discuss the repercussions of the attack, and said that it “denounces what a suspicious group carried out against the diplomatic missions whose protection we are committed to in Iraq.”

The US Ambassador to Baghdad, Alina Romanowski, put greater pressure on the Prime Minister and the “coordination framework” after she called on the Iraqi security forces to arrest the perpetrators of the attack and bring them to justice. “It is time to do something and achieve results,” she said.

Apparently, the Iraqi government is trying to keep up with American pressure, after a prominent military official announced that “important leads have been reached that will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators.”

According to General Yahya Rasoul, spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, “the command replaced the regiment charged with protecting the Green Zone.”

A thread between Iran and the “Framework”

The Iraqi Prime Minister is often viewed as having an executive and political position that requires him to be cautious in dealing with Washington on the one hand, and his allies among the Shiite parties, some of which have armed groups loyal to Iran, but the thin line between them has begun to disappear to some extent, since the beginning of the crisis in Gaza. .

“It is difficult to change the resistance strategy in Iraq and the region associated with the Gaza Strip under the pretext of political changes facing the forces of the coordination framework. This is what we hear from them (the factions loyal to Iran). Therefore, the forces that support the government have no choice but to maneuver,” says the Iraqi leader.

Since October 7, the Shiite forces have been facing a crisis of “complex roles,” as their political influence and their ambition to make the current government succeed clash with their role in what is known as the “axis of resistance.”

The leader says, “The issue of stopping the factions’ attacks, or trying to stop them, is almost impossible. Because that would mean intersect with Iranian circles related to the Iraqi file.”

Mediations led by a political movement within the framework with armed factions with the aim of stopping these attacks failed, even “with the sensitivity of the current regional situation.”

The official in charge of the “Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades,” Abu Alaa al-Wala’i, refused to “stop or reduce operations,” and said in a post on the “X” platform that he “understands the motives of mediations and realizes the importance of multiple roles, but resistance is a culture that does not die.”

It is possible that forces within the framework will resort to a “tactic of exchanging roles” with the aim of eliminating or relieving pressure at the present time.

This may mean, according to the leader, that “a small group will bear the burden of the attacks carried out,” because “they will not stop, and the coordination framework cannot go far in the relationship with it or support its armed activities.”

This leader spoke of “a political sorting that the coordination framework will have to undertake during the coming period, because he wants to run in the local elections in the middle of this month in a calm and stable situation.”