BICOM

What happened: The funeral for Qassem Soleimani reached Tehran yesterday, drawing hundreds of thousands – Iran said “millions” – of people to the streets. At a televised ceremony Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei and other senior regime officials wept. Soleimani will be buried in his home town of Kerman today.

• The US military in Iraq mistakenly sent a letter to the Iraqi government last night announcing the withdrawal of US forces. The Pentagon later clarified that the letter was genuine but was issued in error and US forces were not withdrawing.
• Israel attempted to keep its distance from the crisis. According to Israel’s Channel 13 News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that: “The killing of Soleimani is a US event, not an Israeli event, and we should stay out of it.”
• Gen. Herzi Halevy, head of the IDF’s Southern Command, echoed this sentiment earlier in the day, saying at a public conference that the Soleimani operation was: “Part of the campaign between the US and Iran over the character of Iraq. That’s the story. It has an impact on us as Israelis, we need to follow it closely, but we’re not the central story here and good that it happened far away.”
• The Times reports that the UK Ministry of Defence has sent 20 senior military planners and liaison officers to the British Embassy in Baghdad to map out possible withdrawal routes for the 400 British soldiers currently deployed in three camps in Iraq – Camp Taji near Baghdad, Union III in Baghdad, and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. The US-led coalition announced on Monday that it had suspended its fight against ISIS and forces are now protecting Iraqi bases where its troops are stationed. UK personnel have trained and mentored 25,000 Iraqi military personnel, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.
• According to Sky News, the UK has decided to reduce staff at its embassies in Iran and Iraq to a minimum as a precautionary step in case of possible retaliatory attacks in the region by Iran and its proxies on UK personnel. The UK ambassadors – Rob Macaire in Tehran and Stephen Hickey in Baghdad – will remain in place. The Foreign Office said: “The safety and security of our staff is of paramount importance and we keep our security posture under regular review. Both our embassies in Baghdad and Tehran remain open.”
• Prime Minister Boris Johnson will convene the National Security Council today and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace will make a statement to Parliament this afternoon. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke on Monday to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, and reiterated the need for a diplomatic resolution to avoid an escalation of conflict in the region.

Context: The killing of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, has raised tensions throughout the Middle East.

• The US currently has 5,000 troops in Iraq – primarily geared towards anti-ISIS operations, the training of the Iraqi Security Forces, and the protection of American personnel and assets in the country. The erroneous US letter issued last night was initially viewed as the evacuation all of these forces although a redeployment within Iraq is more likely than a full withdrawal.
• The letter was also viewed as a political gambit by the Trump Administration after the Iraqi Senate passed a non-binding resolution calling for US forces to leave the country. Trump had earlier threatened sanctions against Iraq.
• The UK Government has repeated is commitment to the fight against ISIS and urged Iraq to allow UK soldiers to remain in the country.
• According to a Downing Street spokesperson, Prime Minister Johnson spoke to his Iraqi counterpart, Prime Minster Abdul Mahdi and discussed “the need to deescalate tensions in the region following the death of Qasem Soleimani and agreed to work together to find a diplomatic way forward”. The Prime Minister also “underlined the UK’s unwavering commitment to Iraq’s stability and sovereignty and emphasised the importance of the continued fight against the shared threat from Daesh [ISIS]”.
• The EU has adopted a similar diplomatic approach to the crisis, with the EU’s new foreign affairs chief Josep Borell inviting Zarif to Brussels for talks.

Looking ahead: The real crisis surrounding the demise of Qassem Soleimani arguably starts tomorrow now that the period of mourning in Iran is over. Iran must decide where and how it intends to retaliate – with the most likely initial targets being American forces in Iraq, Syria, and perhaps the Gulf. Such a move runs the risk of a disproportionate response by Washington against Iran itself, as President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised.

• In the UK, all eyes will be on what Iran policy Prime Minister Johnson decides to adopt and what, if any, changes he makes to the deployment of UK forces in Iraq and the mission of Royal Navy ships in the Straits of Hormuz. Following the assassination he has tried to steer between supporting the US’s right to defend itself and aligning with his European partners to call on both sides not to escalate into a devastating cycle of violence. Were Iran to respond forcefully, he will have to choose between the more aggressive US approach and the more conciliatory EU line.