Leaving for good: Soldiers close the Iraq-Kuwait border gate behind the final vehicles. There are concerns about how stable Iraq is and whether the departure of U.S. troops is too premature. December, 2011.
The New Arab: Detrimental or beneficial: The status of foreign troops in Iraq
The US has over 5,000 troops currently based in Iraq.
The status of foreign troops in Iraq has once again been raised in recent months. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated Tehran's opposition to the US presence in Iraq following a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on April 6.
"US military presence in Iraq is detrimental to countries and nations of the region. You should take action to make the US withdraw its troops from Iraq because wherever they have had [an] enduring presence, forcing them out has become problematic," he told the Iraqi premier.
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WNU Editor: Iraqi rhetoric aside, I do not see Baghdad ordering U.S. forces out of Iraq in the foreseeable future. The Iraqi government is more concerned about Turkish forces in the northern part of the country, the autonomous Kurdish regions, and the Iranian-Persian desires to make Iraq a satellite state of Tehran. Telling the U.S. to leave will bring no benefit to Baghdad, and I think they all know that. I think the Iraqis also know that if they tell the U.S. to leave, President Trump would quickly grab that as an excuse to leave ASAP.
1 comment:
For Shiite Iraq, the American presence has been mostly good. Americans put them in power after decades of Saddam's cruelties. Then when Americans withdrew, Saddam's old generals retook 1/3 of Iraq and killed 10's of thousands. When the Americans came back, the old Saddam generals were crushed.
Very easy to predict what is best for Iraq and that is a loving embrace of America.
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