Iraq and Iran raise the stakes after the killing of Qassem Suleimani

FROM BAGHDAD airport, where an American air strike killed him, to his hometown of Kerman, about 1,300 kilometres away in Iran, hundreds of thousands of people filed into the streets to mourn General Qassem Suleimani on January 5th. They came out in Baghdad and Tehran, and the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Top officials in both countries joined the crowds of people beating their chests for Iran’s most prominent commander. And as the funeral procession advanced from city to city, the government of each country began to respond to the American attack.The first move came in Iraq, where the parliament passed a resolution calling for foreign troops to leave the country. The move was aimed at America, which has some 5,000 soldiers in Iraq. But whether America actually leaves is another question. Sunni and Kurdish politicians, unlike their Shia counterparts, want the Americans to continue keeping tabs on Islamic State (IS) and training the Iraqi army. Since 2014 America has spent nearly $6bn on military aid for Iraq. The money alone may be reason enough for the Iraqi government to relent. The resolution, which is non-binding, says it “must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason”. How fast that work occurs could depend on how (and where) the conflict between America and Iran escalates.