Donald Trump said he was withdrawing some of the American personnel deployed in the Middle East because it could be a “dangerous place” amid rising tensions.
The State Department said it had ordered the departure of all non-essential personnel and their dependents from its embassy in Baghdad.
Simultaneously, a US official said, defence secretary Pete Hegseth had authorised the voluntary departure of military dependents from countries across the region, including Bahrain and Kuwait. American soldiers in the region were not affected by this order, however.
The decision comes amid heightened tensions as Mr Trump’s push to reach a deal with Iran to halt its nuclear programme is deadlocked and intelligence suggests Israel is making preparations for a strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.
“They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens,” Mr Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ve given notice to move out.”
Asked if anything could be done to de-escalate tensions in the region, particularly with Iran, the president said: “They can’t have a nuclear weapon. Very simple – they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
News of the Baghdad evacuation drove oil prices up by more than 4 per cent. Oil futures climbed $3, with Brent crude futures at $69.18 a barrel.
The US maintains a military presence across the oil-rich region, with bases in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE.
A US official told Reuters that the State Department was “set to have an ordered departure for the embassy in Baghdad”.
“The intent is to do it through commercial means, but the US military is standing by if help is requested,” the officials said.
Iraq’s state news agency reported, citing a government official, that Baghdad hadn’t recorded any security indication warranting an evacuation. Sources in Iraqi and US governments did not explain what security risks had prompted the decision, although heightened tensions with Iran were widely speculated to be a reason.
The sixth round of nuclear talks between Iran and the US is scheduled to happen over the weekend in Oman, with Tehran expected to hand over a counterproposal after rejecting an offer by Washington.
Iran says it does not plan to build a nuclear weapon and is only interested in peaceful use of its nuclear programme. The US, though, wants Tehran to stop uranium enrichment entirely.
Speaking on the Pod Force One podcast on Monday, Mr Trump said he was growing “less confident” about getting a deal with Iran. It wasn’t clear, he said, that Tehran would accept the key US demand to stop enriching uranium. “I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more – less confident about it,” the president said.
Iranian defence minister Amir Aziz Nasirzadeh warned that “the situation may escalate into conflict” if negotiations with the US failed.
“If a conflict is imposed on us,” he warned on Wednesday, “all US bases are within our reach, and we will boldly target them in host countries”.
Tensions in the Middle East are also rising due to Israel’s war on Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire twice last year – the first direct attacks between the region’s most entrenched enemies – with missiles and war drones hurtling across Iraqi airspace.
Strategic experts and former officials said Israel could consider taking matters into its own hands if nuclear talks with the US didn’t yield a favourable outcome.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that a flawed agreement would be more dangerous than no deal at all.
Mr Trump recently revealed he had cautioned Mr Netanyahu against taking unilateral action, such as a military strike, which could jeopardise the ongoing negotiations with Tehran.
