Relations between Washington and Baghdad are currently at a low point, but, perversely, that could be a good thing for President Trump’s oft-repeated goal of bringing the remaining 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq home.
Furious over the Jan. 3 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed not only Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani but also senior Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the Iraqi parliament quickly passed a nonbinding resolution calling for all U.S. troops to be disinvited from the country.
Initially, President Trump reacted with a threat of his own.
“If we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before, ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base, that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”
But as Iraq’s anger cooled and its ardor for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces waned, Trump, too, became more sanguine.
Meeting with Iraqi President Barham Salih at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, Trump didn’t rule out an exit by the last American troops.
“We’re down to a very low number, historically low. And we’ll see what happens,” he said, adding one caveat. “We do have to do things on our terms.”
The backlash over Soleimani’s death prompted a three-week halt in counter-Islamic State operations, the ostensible reason that U.S. troops have remained in Iraq after the defeat of the so-called ISIS caliphate.
And though the pause has since been lifted, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the four-star commander of U.S. forces in the region, told reporters traveling with him earlier this month that while some training and joint special operations missions have resumed, most U.S.-Iraqi military operations have been scaled back.
“We’re still in a period of turbulence. We’ve got a ways to go,” he said.
During the fight to reclaim its territory from ISIS, Iraq welcomed help not just from the United States, but also from Iranian-backed Shiite militias known as Popular Mobilization Forces.
Now, as its Shiite-dominated government seeks to maintain good relations with Iran, its more prominent neighbor to the east, there is growing sentiment for cutting ties with the U.S.
The Iraqi military has been ordered to minimize cooperation with the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, according to a report from the Associated Press, quoting two Iraqi military officials and one militia official.
“After the killing of Soleimani, the Iraqi government decided to inform us formally not to cooperate and not to seek assistance from the U.S.-led international coalition in any operation,” a senior military intelligence official told the Associated Press.
Immediately after the Soleimani strike, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. had no plans to leave Iraq, but cooperation has not improved.
Esper revealed last month that so far, Iraq has refused to grant permission for the U.S. to deploy Patriot missile defense batteries to the al Asad air base in western Iraq, where more than 100 U.S. troops suffered mild traumatic brain injuries as a result of a retaliatory Iranian missile strike Jan. 8.
At the just-concluded meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Esper successfully argued that troops from allied nations need to take the place of American forces so that U.S. troops can be redeployed to counter Russia and China, which under the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy are seen as more significant threats than terrorist groups.
“That’s my ambition,” Esper told reporters traveling with him. “The first thing is getting NATO in, and once we get … more NATO partners in, we could look at reducing our footprint.”
Under pressure from the U.S., the ministers “supported the decision to do more and also to take over some of the activities … conducted by the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after Esper’s presentation.
Because of Iraq’s reliance on U.S. military technology and sophisticated intelligence gathering, it’s unlikely it will want to expel the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition.
The U.S. also needs the coalition to stay to counter Iran’s growing influence over Iraqi’s majority-Shiite government.
However, with more NATO trainers and advisers, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq could, in theory, be reduced by as much as 90%, down to about 500, roughly the same amount of American special operations forces in Somalia.
By ordering the killing of Soleimani, Trump disrupted the dynamic of the U.S.-Iraqi relations, and in the process, may have laid the groundwork for an amicable divorce.
But there are some ironies in the way things have worked out.
Soleimani’s goal was to force U.S. troops to leave, so oddly, he may have achieved in death what he could not in life.
And if Iraq does expel the U.S., Trump would find himself in a similar position to President Barack Obama in 2011, when Iraq’s elected government refused permission for 10,000 American troops to stay in Iraq, insisting the U.S. was bound to leave under a withdrawal plan agreed to by President George W. Bush.
Then as now, the U.S. conceded it could not remain in a sovereign nation, which is an ally, without its permission.
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
