Lawmakers in Iraq heeded the demands of angry citizens and voted on Sunday to expel United States troops from the country after the United States ordered the killing of the Iranian leader of the elite Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, on Iraqi soil.
The decision came as hundreds of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Iran to pay their respects to General Suleimani, the most powerful figure in the country after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The vote is not final until Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of Iraq signs the draft bill. Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Mahdi indicated that he would do so, having urged lawmakers to oust the United States-led coalition after President Trump ordered a fatal drone strike against General Suleimani in the Baghdad airport.
Members of Iraq’s Parliament were divided on the demands to expel American troops. While factions that grew out of Shiite militia organizations have pushed hard for the expulsion, Sunni Muslim factions and the Kurds wanted the United States to stay.
The vote was 170-0 in Parliament, but many of its 328 members, primarily Kurds and Sunnis, did not attend the session and did not vote.
American troops are in Iraq “at the invitation” of the Iraqi government, according to the legal agreement between Baghdad and Washington. Presumably, if Baghdad withdrew that invitation, the United States would have to withdraw.
The body of General Suleimani was brought back early Sunday from Iraq, where he was killed on Friday near the Baghdad airport. Among the others killed in the attack was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, which includes at least half a dozen pro-Iranian militias.
The general’s killing unleashed calls for vengeance in both Iraq and Iran, and reinforced a general solidarity among hard-liners and moderates in Iran against the United States. In Iraq, the attack was seen as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty. On Sunday, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.
In Iran, it was viewed as tantamount to an act of war. Hossein Dehghan, a military adviser to Mr. Khamenei, told CNN that Iran’s response would include an attack on “U.S. military targets.”
As the Middle East braced for Iranian retaliation, which analysts said was all but inevitable and American officials said they expected within weeks, Tehran and Washington ratcheted up the rhetoric.
Members of Iran’s Parliament chanted, “Death to America!” en masse in the chamber on Sunday in protest over General Suleimani’s killing, television footage showed.
The chants came as President Trump, who ordered the drone strike, fired off a series of Twitter ripostes to the growing anger, including that the United States had pinpointed 52 targets in Iran, including cultural sites, if there were any retaliation for the killing. He said the sites represented the 52 Americans hostages “taken by Iran many years ago” at the United States Embassy.
That led Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to respond on Twitter that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime.” He said that the “end of U.S. malign presence in West Asia has begun.”
Iran summoned the Swiss envoy representing American interests in Tehran on Sunday to protest Mr. Trump’s threat that Washington would target Iranian sites. And Mr. Trump’s tweet became a rallying cry among Iranians sharing it widely on social media and phone applications with the message, “Attend the funeral for our cultural heritage.”
Iran’s information and telecommunications minister, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, tweeted on Sunday that Mr. Trump was “a terrorist in a suit.”
“Like ISIS, Like Hitler, Like Genghis! They all hate cultures. Trump is a terrorist in a suit. He will learn history very soon that NOBODY can defeat ‘the Great Iranian Nation & Culture,’” Mr. Jahromi wrote.
The drone attack left America’s European allies scrambling to address the safety of their troops in the Middle East and complaining that they had been given no warning about the strike. But European leaders also called for de-escalation between Iran and the United States.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, invited Mr. Zarif to Brussels for talks. Mr. Borrell said in a statement that he had spoken to Iran’s foreign minister, urging “Iran to exercise restraint and carefully consider any reaction to avoid further escalation, which harms the entire region and its people.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said he would seek direct talks with Iran after the American killing of General Suleimani. Europe wants to continue the fight against the Islamic State, Mr. Maas said, and Germany is anxious about the safety of its troops training Iraqi fighters against the Islamic State militants.
