Sweden, whose embassy at Baghdad was set on fire early this morning, is discovering that the breadth of its freedoms risks placing the peace-preaching Nordic country at the forefront of the clash of civilizations. 

The Biden administration condemned the embassy torching, but it may be out of its depth when it comes to the new tensions. Some Iraqis believe the Islamic Republic of Iran is driving events in Sweden and Iraq, stoking  a clash between champions of free speech and devout Muslims.   

Just last month, a Swedish court allowed protesters to burn a Koran in front of a Mosque in Stockholm. After a Swedish court allowed a second recent desecration of the Korean, two men on Thursday kicked at copies of the holy Islamic scripture and stomped on the Iraqi flag. At Baghdad at the same time, a crowd set the Swedish embassy on fire and the Iraqi government expelled the Swedish ambassador and severed diplomatic ties with Stockholm.

The man who burned a Koran in front of a Stockholm mosque last month on the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha, Salwan Momika, was at it again Thursday. An Iraqi native and a Christian, Mr. Momika claimed he wanted to demonstrate that Muslims care more about burning “pieces of paper” than burning people in their own lands. He seemed to kick up a storm.  

“The whole thing smells of Iran,” the president of the Washington-based Future Organization, Iraqi-born Entifadh Qanbar, tells the Sun. He notes that prior to moving to Sweden, Mr. Momika “was a leader of an Iraqi Christian militia — the Spirit of Jesus Brigades — which was formed by the IRGC,” as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are known.     

In that light, Mr. Momika’s repeated provocations may have been designed to create a clash between secular Europe and Muslim lands. Yet even if the Swedish authorities didn’t light the fire, they certainly failed to do their utmost to extinguish it. 

Last week the Swedish police authorized a demonstration, including the burning of a Torah, in front of the Israeli embassy, a protest that was hailed as a counter-protest to the Koran torching. After Jewish leaders quietly pleaded with the protester, Syrian-born Ahmad Alush, he claimed he never actually intended to set a book on fire, as to do so “is against the Koran.” 

Sweden’s eagerness to defend provocative acts led to a delay of its accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which President Erdogan of Turkey has been blocking for months. Mr. Erdogan eventually relented, in exchange for President Biden’s promise to sell Turkey F-16 fighter jets.

Although Mr. Erdogan keeps a tight grip over the country’s institutions, he insists that the Ankara parliament needs to ratify his decision. Thursday’s second Koran desecration could further complicate the NATO deal. Other Muslim governments, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, have downgraded their diplomatic relations with Sweden and protested diplomatically.

Yet, nowhere was the anger more pronounced than in Mr. Momika’s homeland, Iraq. During his protest at Stockholm, Mr. Momika stomped with his feet on an image of a firebrand Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. Mr. al-Sadr called on supporters to protest the Koran desecration at the Baghdad Swedish embassy. 

The leader of the Sadrist movement, a major force in Iraq’s complex politics of competing interests, Mr. al-Sadr is a fierce nationalist. Of late he has been a vocal critic of Tehran’s malign influence over the country. Some of his supporters now claim that while the vast majority of protesters in front of the Swedish embassy on Thursday were Sadrists, they were not the ones who set it on fire.

“In my opinion the burning of the embassy is a result of an internal Shia versus Shia struggle,” Mr. Qanbar tells the Sun. “My sources say that Muqtada’s instructions were clear, asking protesters not to enter the embassy. Yet, Iran pushed a few to enter and burn the embassy in order to embarrass Muqtada.”

Other sources say that Mr. al-Sadr’s passionate pronouncement against Sweden and his call to protest at the embassy could have easily led an avid follower to take things further than what the leader said he intended them to be. 

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government of Prime Minister al-Sudani, which is heavily influenced by Tehran, has further deepened the crisis by expelling the Swedish ambassador at Baghdad and recalling its charge d’affaires from Stockholm.

“It is unacceptable that Iraqi Security Forces did not act to prevent protestors from breaching the Swedish Embassy compound for a second time and damaging it,” the American Department of State’s spokesman, Matt Miller, said in a statement. He also called on Baghdad “to honor its international obligations to protect all diplomatic missions in Iraq.”

Washington has for months eased sanctions against Tehran by releasing Iranian funds held in Iraq. Yet, on Thursday the Department of the  Treasury banned 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar-based transactions after they illegally siphoned American currency to Iran. The action is bound to further diminish America’s already weakened influence over Baghdad. 

As it strives to keep out of Mideast affairs, America seems increasingly ill-equipped to lower tensions between Islam and the West — even as Koran burnings and other provocations threaten to ignite them.