Already backing away from withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan,
President Trump really raised a lot of questions with his quotes over
the weekend on Iraq. Trump insisted that US troops “might as well” stay in Iraq and that they’d use it to “watch Iran.”
This puzzled a lot of administration officials. The Pentagon said no one
told them the mission for the troops in Iraq was ever changed to
watching Iran. The State Department says that the troops aren’t watching Iran at all, and that troops are in Iraq out of respect for “mutual sovereignty.”
The Iraqi government is already having some trouble with US views of
their sovereignty, and these comments aren’t helping. President Barham
Salih warned that Iraq had never given US troops in their country permission to watch anybody.
Other Iraqi officials concurred, saying that they would not allow Iraq
to be used as a staging area for moves against a neighbor, and that the
US should not “overburden Iraq with your own issues.”
Trump’s Comments on ‘Watching Iran’ Confuse Pentagon, Anger Iraq
Iraqi President: US has no permission to use Iraq to watch anyone
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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