The U.S., Iraq and Iran The Baghdad vote isn’t the last word on American troops.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-iraq-and-iran-11578263875?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
The U.S. strikes in Iraq against Iranian-backed militias and Qasem Soleimani were necessary, but they always risked a nationalist backlash. The Iraqi Parliament’s symbolic vote Sunday to oust U.S. troops from the country is an example of that backlash, but it’s also far from the last word.
The vote was not decisive, as only a little over half of Iraq’s 329 members of parliament were present to vote on the nonbinding resolution. Kataib Hezbollah, the militia allied with Iran’s Quds Force that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad last week, issued threats against lawmakers who voted against the resolution.
Shiite lawmakers hold a majority and most voted in favor, while Kurdish and most Sunni members didn’t show up. Iraq’s minorities understand better than anyone the risk of Iranian domination, and both have supported a continuing American military presence.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi supported the vote, but he’s a caretaker who in November promised to resign after widespread protests sapped the legislature’s legitimacy. Elections for a new parliament are expected this year. The public already has registered its disgust with the Iraqi ruling class, and no doubt the U.S. and Iranian presence in the country will be major election issues.
The parliament also voted to file a complaint with the United Nations about the strike against Soleimani. Those suddenly concerned about international law apparently weren’t worried that Soleimani’s presence in Iraq was illegal under a 2007 United Nations Security Council resolution that was still in force. If the terrorist ringleader had adhered to that U.N. travel restriction, he’d still be alive.
The modest presence of 5,000 or so U.S. troops is in the interests of Iraq and America. Iraq could never have retaken Mosul and defeated Islamic State without U.S. air power, precision weapons, intelligence and training. Those assets are protection against the revival of ISIS or another Sunni jihadist insurgency. U.S. troops also give Iraqi patriots confidence to counter Shiite militias armed by Iran and resist Iran’s strategic goal of making Iraq its political and military subsidiary.
The U.S. can’t, and shouldn’t, remain in Iraq if American diplomats and soldiers are under siege. Iraq’s security forces failed to protect the U.S. Embassy last week, and they proved unable to stop Soleimani and the Shiite militias that fired rockets at U.S. troops 11 times in two months.
Deterring such attacks was the reason President Trump made the decision to attack the militias and target Soleimani. Allowing open season on U.S. forces wasn’t tenable, and something had to be done. If such American self-defense is too much for Iraqis to tolerate, then the pro-Iran militias would have been allowed to drive Americans out in any case.
By the way, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice and other Obama Administration alumni are the least credible voices on the U.S. presence in Iraq. Barack Obama used Shiite Iraqi objections as an excuse to justify a complete U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2011. “The tide of war is receding,” he claimed as he ran for re-election in 2012. Team Obama wanted out of Iraq and barely tried to negotiate a new status-of-forces pact.
But Islamic State emerged and grew in America’s absence, and Mr. Obama had to send troops back to Iraq to avoid the strategic catastrophe of a jihadist caliphate in Baghdad. If U.S. troops are forced to leave again, it won’t be because Mr. Trump wants to appease Iran as the Obama Administration did.
Mr. Trump should make clear that the U.S. presence is to maintain a free and independent Iraq and support its sovereignty when threatened by ISIS and Iran-controlled militias. Most Iraqis know the U.S. played a decisive role in defeating Islamic State and have no interest in becoming Tehran’s colony.
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