The Next U.S.-Iran Flashpoint Could Be Iraq
- Both sides have forces on the ground, compounding difficulties
- Iran has deep connections to Shiite milities, Iraqi officals
Photographer: Hussein Faleh/AFP via Getty Images
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Drones have been downed and tankers attacked in the Persian Gulf as U.S.-Iran tensions raise fears of war around a critical oil chokepoint. But any conflict between rivals might actually start in the one country where both sides have forces on the ground: Iraq.
After two wars with America since 1990, a brutal civil conflict and the rise of Islamic State more recently, about 5,200 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq -- amid thousands of Iranian-backed Shiite militias, controlled by officials in Baghdad sympathetic to Tehran.