Despite opposition from militia groups, Iraqi President Barham Salih met with President Trump Wednesday in Switzerland. The two discussed a number of issues, including US sanctions threats, calls for US troop cuts, and the possible impact to Iraq’s long-term sovereignty of hosting US troops that won’t leave if asked.
Iraq’s parliament voted earlier this month 170-0 to ask the US to withdraw. Trump refused and has threatened to seize their oil sale bank account, 90% of the government’s funding, and impose unprecedented sanctions on top of that. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has since punted on the troop issue until the next election, but this is clearly still an issue in US-Iraqi relations.
Trump’s statement after meeting with Salih struck a similarly unaware chord, declaring Iraq to “like what we’re doing,” and dismissing the idea of troop cuts by saying the 5,000 or so troops he believes are in Iraq now is an “historically low” number.
On top of that, Trump further seemed to dismiss the idea of Iraq having any say in this at all, saying we’ll “see what happens” on his sanctions threat, and that any change in US troop levels would have to be “on our terms.”
Like with Israel and the Palestinians, not allowing any real local control means risking having to invade again and run the place outright. Of course the less-disastrous option would be for Trump to reverse himself again and admit his threats were a lot of empty hot air.
Don Trumpleone: “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Hold your horses until October and you’ll hear a different tune.
“by saying the 5,000 or so troops he believes are in Iraq now is an “historically low” number.”
MAGA by keeping our troop level in a country he said we should never have invaded(except when he did the Stern interview)at historic lows. I guess he thinks he’s bragging about the stock market or the unemployment rate. What an effing moron.
I remember a time when there were zero US troops in Iraq, so his history is a little fishy
Spoken like a true arrogant imperialist hubristic dickhead. As if a unanimous vote by their elected government telling them to GTFO meant nothing. Amerika once again bringing “democracy” to the world. Gak
The US of A is the world’s biggest bully. I look forward to the day when other countries become strong enough to stand up to the bully.
Put it to a referendum in that newborn democracy we put there.