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Baghdad Fears Rise of US, Iranian Tensions in Iraq

Iran's nuclear mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh pictured in an undated photo, Reuters
Iran's nuclear mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh pictured in an undated photo, Reuters
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Baghdad Fears Rise of US, Iranian Tensions in Iraq

Iran's nuclear mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh pictured in an undated photo, Reuters
Iran's nuclear mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh pictured in an undated photo, Reuters

Even though Baghdad refrained from taking an official stance on the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Shiite political parties and blocs in Iraq like the Islamic Dawa Party issued loud condemnations against the killing.

A single Sunni organization, the Iraq Scholars Association, headed by cleric Khaled Al-Mulla, issued an obituary and condemnation statement.

The assassination preoccupied the Iraqi public opinion on various media platforms.

Controversy was sparked between those who believe that an Iranian retaliation would not involve Iraq, given its current political instability, and those who say that Tehran will not avenge Fakhrizadeh’s death for the time being.

Many are convinced that Tehran will remain silent in order to avert chances of outgoing US President Donald Trump using their retaliation to warrant a striking hit on Iran.

Others say that Iran may decide to respond to Fakhrizadeh’s killing in other parts of the region, like in the Arab Gulf or against Israel.

While it may prove to be too risky for Iran to respond now that the US administration is undergoing a delicate power transition, Iranian proxies in Iraq may stage retaliatory missile attacks against Baghdad’s Green Zone, where the US embassy is found, or against American assets in the country.

National Iraqi Alliance leader Ayad Allawi warned against the rise of extremism in light of the absence of political stability in Iraq.

“I am afraid of an expected escalation of extremist groups, on top of which is ISIS, which may take advantage of political instability,” Allawi tweeted on Saturday.

“These groups may exploit the aggravated economic and health crisis, the absence of a national contract that binds components of the people and political parties, and failure to eradicate terrorism from its roots,” he added.

Allawi emphasized the need for the Iraqi government to focus efforts on resolving the above mentioned challenges.

Hussein Allawi, national security professor at Al-Nahrain University, explained that if Iraq doesn’t overcome its vulnerabilities and political instability it would be rendered an easy target for Iranian agenda.

“Political parties have left the Iraqi government to face internal and external challenges on its own,” Allawi told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Iran can place Iraq in the basket of targeted goals, especially since there are diplomatic and training advisory missions working with the joint Iraqi forces,” Allawi cautioned.

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Despite Sharp Decline, Inflation Remains a Sore Point for Harris

Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech at The Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center, a youth basketball facility, as she campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech at The Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center, a youth basketball facility, as she campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
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Despite Sharp Decline, Inflation Remains a Sore Point for Harris

Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech at The Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center, a youth basketball facility, as she campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech at The Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center, a youth basketball facility, as she campaigns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

For six months or so in 2021, as vaccines paved an economic reopening from the COVID-19 pandemic and fresh waves of federal benefits flowed to household bank accounts, President Joe Biden's administration reaped the benefit with an approval rating pinned above 50%.
It has been mired around 40% ever since, with the scarring impact of subsequently high inflation still cited by voters as a major issue even though the pace of price increases has declined, wages and the economy continue to grow, and the jobless rate remains low, Reuters said.
As good as the economy might seem across most major indicators, inflation that peaked at 9% more than two years ago has been hard for Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to outrun, and given former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump a cudgel that remains effective on the eve of the election even as inflation has dwindled to 2.4%.
"Inflation has not faded as an issue," said Justin McCarthy, a spokesperson for Gallup, the polling giant that fields monthly surveys that include an open-ended question, without lists or prompts, of what respondents feel is the "most important" issue facing them. Those citing inflation as the most serious issue has fallen from highs of around 20% during the peak inflation surge in 2022 to around 15% in recent polls, but that remains double the historic norm and is part of broader concern about the economy cited by more than 40% of respondents.
It's an area where Trump continues to hold a polling edge despite Harris' pledges to address issues like high housing costs or the "price gouging" she cites as a cause of high prices in the grocery aisle.
In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 68% of respondents in seven swing states said the cost of living was "on the wrong track," and 61% said the same about the economy. Half said Trump had "a better plan, policy or approach" to managing the economy compared with 37% for Harris, while on inflation Trump was favored 47% to 34%.
In-person voting concludes on Tuesday, with polls showing an overall tight race between Harris and Trump nationally and in the battleground states seen as determining the outcome.
The Biden administration and later the Harris campaign recognized early on the problem inflation posed.
Biden named one of his signature pieces of legislation the "Inflation Reduction Act," though much of it focused on subsidies for electric vehicles and clean energy. As rising rent and housing prices emerged as a particularly acute issue, they launched proposals that included capping rent increases, tax incentives for affordable housing construction, and downpayment help for first-time home buyers.
What they didn't publicize so much is how sticky a problem it would be for the households living through it.
Attitudes improved somewhat as inflation began to ease last year, but the change only went so far.
'UNAMBIGUOUSLY NEGATIVE'
Solutions have been offered by both campaigns, but inflation, the responsibility first and foremost of the Federal Reserve through its management of interest rates and credit conditions, is difficult for elected officials to address.
Republican President Richard Nixon tried the direct route by freezing wage and price increases for 90 days in 1971 and establishing a government panel to approve them after that. Inflation was 4.3% at the time and did fall below 4% in the summer of 1972 as Nixon campaigned for reelection.
But it soared that fall as the controls were eased, and following an embargo by Arab oil exporters in 1973 exceeded 12% by the end of 1974.
When inflation started rising during his term in office, Democratic President Jimmy Carter used a major address in 1978 to announce plans to limit government spending and call for voluntary wage and price limits from business. By the middle of his losing reelection bid against Republican Ronald Reagan prices were rising more than 14% annually.
After two recessions, a period of punishing interest rates imposed by the Fed and its firmer commitment to inflation control, price increases gradually settled close to the 2% level the central bank eventually adopted as its official target - and stayed there until the COVID-19 pandemic.
Economists have sparred over the exact reasons inflation took off beginning in 2021, and if that could have been prevented. But they generally agree on the broad mix. As the pandemic limited spending on in-person services, it also created deep backlogs in the manufacture and delivery of the goods, from bikes to appliances to automobiles, that were suddenly in high demand as a result of roughly $5 trillion in stimulus from the federal government.
The pandemic support began under Trump; Biden added more in a move some economists feel may have supercharged demand beyond what was needed.
It is a debate being litigated in hindsight and in the shadow of a health crisis that lingered long enough - new COVID variants were still suppressing in-person gatherings through 2021 - to even implicate the Fed. Inflation took off in 2021; the central bank did not raise rates until March 2022.
What doesn't seem in doubt is the impact on the public mood, something that shouldn't be a surprise.
Surveys about inflation have been consistent in finding that price shocks register deeply and are not quickly forgotten.
"Inflation significantly complicates household decision-making, which is seen as its most critical consequence," researchers Alberto Binetti of Bocconi University and Francesco Nuzzi and Stefanie Stantcheva of Harvard University concluded from the results of an online survey of 2,264 people conducted between March and May. "This complexity affects daily economic choices" and adds to economic uncertainty.
Nor do people seem to care much if, as has happened recently and Democrats have tried to emphasize, wages rise faster than prices.
"Inflation is perceived as an unambiguously negative phenomenon without any potential positive economic correlates," they found, with people expecting it to be fixed "without significant trade-offs."