The Trump State Department has sanctioned Iraq's Deputy Minister of Oil, Ali Maarij al-Bahadly, for diverting Iraqi oil to benefit Iran — part of a broader pressure campaign following more than 600 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-Israel-led war, per NBC News. The Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center has taken repeated drone strikes; the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued an Americans-leave advisory as recently as Tuesday.
Said a senior State Department official: "There is a very blurry line right now between the Iraqi state and these militias" — specifically citing the Popular Mobilization Force, a Shiite militia umbrella formally integrated into Iraq's national security forces since its 2014 origins.
The play here: Washington is trying to price-signal Baghdad's new PM-designate, Ali al-Zaidi, before his government forms. Oil sanctions are the lever. But 600 attacks and a PMF baked into the security apparatus is not a signaling problem — it's a structural one.