One thing should be made clear at the outset: American troops are not going anywhere! They are not withdrawing from Iraq as reports suggest they will do by the end of 2021.
What is happening might be best described as a public relations exercise and/or reshuffling of the cards for better imagery. Combat US troops – all 2500 of them - are indeed leaving Iraq if that can be the best phrase to use by the end of 2021. However, it should be realized these troops have already changed their mission from combat to “advise” and “assist”. In other words, they will be working alongside the Iraqi army, helping and training them.
All this is being sealed through the Washington-Baghdad ‘strategic dialogue’ currently going on through the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein with the crowing-of-the-ice meeting between US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Premier Mustapha Al Khadimi. This is the second time the two leaders are meeting since Biden came to power which shows the strategic relationship being cemented between the two capitals.
Biden and Al Khadimi appear to be in complete agreement about the American role in Iraq, the security status of American soldiers there in different military bases and as part of the international coalition to fight ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. While ISIS was effectively destroyed in 2017 in Iraq, it is still peering its pernicious head, here and there, through deadly bombings and destructions in the country as well as reaching Baghdad.
Daesh, ISIS, ISIL are all acronyms for the terror organization that came on the scene in 2013 when they controlled swaths of northern Iraq, established their base in Mosul, and subsequently destroyed a major part of the city. Only this year, in 2021, there was three bombings in Baghdad with bloody consequence and the last being on 19 July when a market suicide bomber resulted in at least 35 dead and 60 injured on the day of the Muslim Eid Festival.
With such deadly developments its becoming very difficult for the Americans to militarily disengage despite Shiite militia calls including echoes from the Iraqi Parliament for Americans soldiers to leave the country. The pressure from these parties have continually increased through the frequent missiles fired on Baghdad’s diplomatic headquarters of the “green zone” that houses the American Embassy. This is not to say anything about the frequent attacks on American conveys inside the country. But their calls may yet be downplayed by the ISIS rise and their attempt to regroup not only in Iraq but parts of Syria, in Africa in places like Nigeria, Somalia and Kenya, Afghanistan and going as far as Sri Lanka.
America today continues to think strategically with regards this terror organization despite the pressure from the local Shiites militias in Iraq. Many analysts are saying the US and the Iraqi government knows well that US soldiers are not wanted and that’s why they are playing a game of lip service and are themselves suggesting the American military would leave Iraq sooner than later. But this is being done to keep the pressure ‘manageable’ and below boiling point for the Americans are not going anywhere soon but keeping their options open in the light of the fluidity of the security situation.
The fact that they are drawing troops from Afghanistan suggests these maybe redeployed to near pastures in the Middle East and the issue of Iraq, Syria and probably Jordan comes to mind as a sort of consolidation because this is the best time to rebuild American strategic enforcement particularly in Iraq and northern Syria.
This is especially because of the Iranian role not least of all in Iraq and also in Syria where Persian troops have been digging their heels in for a long-time there through different capacities. This is of course not, to mention Moscow’s role in aiding the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to stay in power. Russian troops in Syria makes it imperative that American troops be there as well!
Thus the American role especially in Iraq has long become strategic despite its previous attempt to disengage from the country in 2011. It’s military intervention in Iraq, starting from the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, is not about to end especially as it watches Tehran’s role in the country expands either directly or through the militias it supports on the ground, not just in Baghdad but throughout the country.
This is especially so in southern Iraq. Further to this Iran, has long built an economic strategic relationship with Iraq to the tune of an annual $12 billion with the latter owing an enormous debt to Tehran. This relationship also worries Washington which has also been pouring aid in the country. Blinken stated in 2021 US aid to Iraq registered at $200 million and that since 2014 America provided $3 billion in humanitarian assistance. A part of these monies is today going to help the 700,000 people that were displaced by the onset of the ISIS terror organization.
All this suggests the US is staying in Iraq and comments made by official and leaders point to the fact that Washington is remaining in the country under different names and terminologies because of the political, security, strategic and economic reasons and no matter how hard the situation becomes. As long as the need to fight ISIS continues, and with Iran in the background, the US will look on Iraq with much more difference than it did with Afghanistan.
