U.S. Faces Embarrassing Deportation From Iraq: CNN

Date: 18 January 2020 - 21:57

News ID: ۷۵۲۴۰

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- Donald Trump has not withdrawn his troops from Iraq, despite his promise to end America’s fierce wars. He may not be required to do so. The United States faces the possibility of being deported, and it would be a great victory for Iran, CNN wrote on Saturday.
Iraqi parliament officials, where powerful blocs have inseparable ties to Tehran, have begun a process to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, in a clear response to the United States assassination of Iranian commander General Qassem Soleimani during a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago, the broadcaster said.
Following the strike, joint U.S.-Iraq operations were halted, and the Iraqi interim prime minister said that a withdrawal of American troops was the only way to "protect everyone on the ground.”
Washington and Tehran have been involved in Iraq – the U.S. through its 2003 invasion of the Arab country and Iran through helping it fight Takfirir terrorists. According to CNN, Iran is already winning in this battle.
"Its coherent and coherent strategy, which is lacking in the United States, has enabled Tehran to gradually integrate into the fabric of daily life in Iraq,” it said.
Iran, it said, has used helped with the formation of popular militias that have become official factions of the Iraqi army, while economically it provides a huge amount of exports that the Iraqis now rely on.
"Because of these ties, the decision of the Iraqi parliament to side with Iran after the Soleimani attack is not surprising. The strike appears to have failed, to the benefit of Iran’s long-term goal of getting the United States out of the region,” it said.
According to CNN, to be deported would be a humiliating end to the United States’ long mission in Iraq, which has drawn hundreds of billions of American taxpayers’ money and left thousands of American soldiers dead.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied that the United States would leave, but noted a possible downsizing. Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, sees this proposal as a face saving exercise for the United States that could allow American troops to remain in small numbers, but essentially to begin the process of withdrawal.
CNN touched on Iraq’s fight against Daesh and Iran’s assistance to train fighters for the battle, such as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), which has officially integrated into the Iraqi army.
Economically, Iran provides energy to Iraq which is also Iran’s second most important destination for exports, after China, according to the Economic Complexity Watch.
Instead, Iraqi officials are growing weary of the changes that have happened with each new U.S. president and the mixed signals sent by the Trump administration, CNN said.
"Pompeo is struggling to send the message that the United States is in Iraq to fight Daesh, while the strikes against the Iranians there and Trump’s comments indicate otherwise,” it said.
Last year Trump admitted in a CBS News interview that he wanted to keep a base in Iraq "because I want to take a look at Iran because Iran is a real problem.” The comment provoked Tehran and caused confusion in Iraq.
Jack Watling, land war specialist at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said that the United States appeared to have shifted its interests in Iraq to the fight against Iran.
"If the United States has declared our goal to be a strong and stable Iraq, then in many ways its best course of action would be to work closely with the Iranians. But it’s not. Their desire to counter the Iranian government outweighs their desire to support the Iraqi state in many ways. There are contradictions in American policy in the region,” he said.