Blinken Visits Iraq in Hopes of Containing Israel-Hamas Battle

There have been a collection of assaults carried out by militia directed at our personnel, each in Iraq in addition to in Syria. Job primary for me is to make sure the safety of our folks. And so I acquired an replace on all the things we’re doing to ensure that our personnel are secure and safe. I had a superb, productive, candid assembly with Prime Minister al-Sudani. And there have been actually two areas of focus for me in that assembly. The primary was to reaffirm our dedication to our partnership with Iraq. The threats coming from militia which can be aligned with Iran are completely unacceptable, and we are going to take each essential step to guard our folks. We’re not searching for battle with Iran; we’ve made that very clear. However we’ll do what’s essential to guard our personnel, be they army or civilian. To anybody who would possibly search to benefit from the battle in Gaza to threaten our personnel right here or anyplace else within the area: Don’t do it.