I'm stating the obvious, but I'll say it anyway a paranoid regime which exerts the majority of its energies on rabble rousing against an external threat(s) is trying to conceal its own inadequacies.

Such developments would cause US debt yields to spike, disrupting growth. The dollar would become weaker, leaving investors wrong footed.

This suggests, first, that governments should avoid public comments describing the American presence as an occupation or as lacking legitimacy, lest they make it more likely that the US departs Iraq entirely and leaves the country and its people to a terrible fate.