Iraqi parliament speaker Mohammed al-Balbousi was at the Pentagon Wednesday to listen to Acting
Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who is trying to sell him, and by
extension the rest of parliament, on keeping US troops in Iraq.
That’s going to be a tough sell. The Iraqis declared the ISIS War over
in 2017, and politicians started asking questions about the pullout
process. That the Pentagon’s stance is troops are staying and that they
never asked Iraq about it isn’t sitting well.
Indeed, a lot of the political opposition to an enduring US presence is
of America’s own making, with the administration having made enemies of
virtually every big Shi’ite bloc by insinuating they are all secretly in
league with Iran, and Trump saying the US might as well stay in Iraq
just to “keep an eye on Iran.”
None of that is sitting well with Iraq’s parliament, which sees most of
US behavior in Iraq as directly aligned against their sovereignty. The
US has done little to seriously challenge that. Even the argument for
staying is that the US really wants to stay, an argument that’s not
likely to sell many MPs.
Sec Def Lobbies Iraqi Leaders to Let US Troops Stay
Main Iraqi parliament blocs want US forces out
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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