Caught between US and Iran, Iraqis face choices in elections
Al Jazeera
The US and Iran have long been using Iraq as a proxy in competing for regional interests.
A seemingly perpetual battlefield caught under the tension between the United States and Iran, Iraq goes to elections at a time when the domestic discontent towards the eastern neighbour and criticism towards the American presence are at their height, paving way for an uncertain future of the US-Iran relationship that has haunted Iraq for years.
The early elections, a response from interim Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to the mass protest movement in 2019, would in a way serve as a testimony to how Iraq perceives Iran and the US, and at large, the relationships with the country’s two most important partners.
The US and Iran have long been using Iraq as a proxy in competing for regional interests. The assassinations in January in 2020 of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one being the top Iranian commander and the other being the then-deputy head of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, opened the curtain for a series of tit for tat escalatory confrontations between the US and Iran with sanctions and rockets – all happening on the Iraqi soil.
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