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Worse than Benghazi

President Trump was at pains yesterday to say that what is happening at the embassy in Baghdad is “no Benghazi.” He’s right: it is worse.

Not until now in terms of lives lost. The Baghdad embassy staff is said to be barricaded in a safe place, which of course means they are safe only if the demonstrators are kept out. Ambassador Chris Stevens died in a “safe” haven in Benghazi. I hope and pray nothing of that sort will happen in Baghdad.

But the broader political picture in Baghdad is much worse than it was in Benghazi, where the group that conducted the attack was a ragtag gang of extremists unsupported by the broader population. In Baghdad, the attackers belong to a government-allied (though not necessarily controlled) militia with a lot of support among Iraq’s majority Shia population and wholehearted Iranian backing.

The Americans withdrew from Libya quickly after the Benghazi attack, because American interests there were minimal. The Embassy is still not back in Tripoli. Iraq is far more important: it is a major oil producer and a front-line state vis-a-vis Iran. Thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars have been spent to ensure a friendly and semi-democratic government as well as to secure a competitive foothold in Iraq, where 5000 or so US troops are still training Iraqi security forces. US withdrawal from Iraq would constitute a major Iranian victory, allowing Tehran to consolidate its access to Syria and Lebanon as well as the Mediterranean.

Withdrawal is therefore still unlikely, but the Baghdad Embassy will not be able to function as before. It was always a ludicrous behemoth, an immense fortress with 20-foot high walls in the center of the most valued neighborhood in the city. Its heavily watered and manicured lawns represented American arrogance at its most obvious: an attempt to install in Baghdad an isolated suburban-style campus protected from the local population. It was an obvious target: symbolic and indefensible unless the Iraqis defended it, as the Vienna conventions require.

It would be hard for any Iraqi government to exert the effort required after an American attack that killed, in retaliation for the death of one American contractor, a couple of dozen Iraqis belonging to one of the militias credited–rightly or not–with defeating the Islamic State and preventing a Shia holocaust. President Trump has vaunted his commitment to disproportionate retaliation, but he forgets it’s a game the Iranians can play as well. The attack on the embassy is their version of escalation. The additional US troops being sent may be able to prevent any deaths or capture of Americans, but they won’t be able to restore the Embassy to normal functionality. Evacuation of most the civilians is likely.

Nor will the US troops be able to prevent the Iraqi politicians who want complete American troop withdrawal from gaining traction. Until the American attack on the Iraqi militiamen, Iraqis were loudly protesting the Iranian presence in the country. That tide has now gone out. Iraq is in the midst of a government crisis: the prime minister has resigned and will remain only until a new one gets a majority in parliament. The US attack and Iranian response make it likely the next one will not be nearly as friendly to the US as the incumbent, Adel Abdul Mehdi. Even if nothing more happens at the Embassy, Tehran has won the current exchange of fire.