US forces in Iraq

but if you want to kill us and are acting on it prepare to be killed its that simple.

The Americans being in stronger position, are more likely to lash out. But why have they not done so already?

US combat forces to leave Iraq by end of year
Published6 hours ago

President Joe Biden says US forces will end their combat mission in Iraq by the end of this year, but will continue to train and advise the Iraqi military.

The announcement came after Mr Biden held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at the White House.

There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq helping local forces counter what remains of the Islamic State group.

Numbers of US troops are likely to stay the same but the move is being seen as an attempt to help the Iraqi PM.

The US presence in Iraq has become a major issue since top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and the leader of an Iran-backed Shia Muslim militia were killed in a US drone strike in the capital Baghdad last year.

Political parties aligned to Iran have demanded the withdrawal of all forces from the US-led global coalition against IS, despite the continuing threat posed by the Sunni jihadist group.

Shia militias have meanwhile been accused by the US of carrying out hundreds of rocket, mortar and drone attacks on Iraqi military bases that host coalition forces in an apparent attempt to pressure them to leave.

For the US president, the announcement marks the end of another war that began under former President George W Bush. This year he said US troops would leave Afghanistan.

Iraqis suffer as US-Iran shadow war shifts gear
Speaking at the White House, Mr Biden told his Iraqi counterpart "our counter-terrorism co-operation will continue even as we shift to this new phase."

Mr Kadhimi responded: "Today our relationship is stronger than ever. Our co-operation is for the economy, the environment, health, education, culture and more." He has insisted no foreign combat troops are needed in Iraq.

US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003 to overthrow President Saddam Hussein and eliminate weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.

Then President George W Bush promised a "free and peaceful Iraq", but it was engulfed by a bloody sectarian insurgency.

US combat troops eventually withdrew in 2011. However, they returned at the request of the Iraqi government three years later, when IS militants overran large parts of the country.

Following the military defeat of IS in Iraq at the end of 2017, US forces remained to help prevent a resurgence of the group.

"Our role in Iraq will be dealing with being available to continue to train, to assist, to help and deal with ISIS as it arrives," Mr Biden added at the meeting.

"But we're not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission."

The BBC's Frank Gardner says the risk of IS once again sweeping aside the Iraqi army is reduced for several reasons.

The political situation in Iraq is more acceptable to the country's competing ethnic groups than it was in 2014.

The US-led coalition has spent a lot of time and effort in training up Iraq's counter-insurgency forces, and the IS leadership currently appears to be more focused on exploiting the ungoverned spaces in Africa and Afghanistan, our correspondent adds.

Advantage Iran?
Analysis box by Frank Gardner, security correspondent
Ever since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 it has been trying to evict US forces from its neighbourhood and become the premier power in the region.

It has had little success in the Arab Gulf states where mistrust of Tehran runs deep and where the US military has facilities in all six countries.

But the US-led toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq removed the most effective obstacle to Iranian expansion, and Tehran has not passed up on the opportunity since then. It has successfully inserted its Shia militias into the fabric of Iraq's security establishment, and its allies have a powerful voice in parliament.

Syria's civil war has opened the door for a major Iranian military presence there, while next door in Lebanon Iran's ally Hezbollah has become the most potent force in the country.

Iran is playing the long game. Its leaders hope that if it keeps up the pressure, both overt and covert, it will eventually make the Middle East a region not worth America's effort to stay engaged in, militarily.

Hence the frequent rocket attacks on US bases and Iran's support for civil protest calling for US troops to leave.

An agreement that sees the end of US combat operations in Iraq will be seen by many in Tehran as a step in the right direction.

How US military pullback in Iraq could benefit Iran
By Frank Gardner

First Afghanistan, now Iraq. As Iraq's prime minister visits the White House for talks with President Joe Biden, an announcement has been made that all remaining US combat troops will be out of Iraq by the end of this year as part of an ongoing "US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue".

This prompts two key questions: what difference will this make on the ground, and does this open the door for a return of Islamic State (IS), the group that terrorised much of the Middle East and attracted recruits from as far afield as London, Trinidad and Australia?

Eighteen years on from the US-led invasion of Iraq, America only has about 2,500 regular troops left in Iraq, plus a small and undisclosed number of Special Operations forces fighting IS.

Concentrated in just three bases, they are a tiny fraction of the 160,000-strong force that occupied Iraq post-invasion - but they are still subject to rocket and drone attacks from suspected Iranian-backed militias.

The US military's job is training and assisting the Iraqi security forces who are still battling a sporadic but deadly insurgency by IS jihadists.

But the US military's presence in the country is controversial.

Iranian-backed politicians and militias want them out, especially after the US assassinated the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, Maj Gen Qasem Soleimani, and a top Iraqi Shia Muslim militia commander at Baghdad airport in January 2020.

Even non-aligned Iraqis would like to see their country rid of foreign forces; the notion of foreign occupation is an emotive one.

This suits some in Washington just fine, although not at the cost of "handing over Iraq to Iran".

Iraqis suffer as US-Iran shadow war shifts gear
The US has long been trying to extricate itself from what President Biden calls its "forever wars" in the Middle East. Hence the accelerated withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, as the US and its allies turn their attention increasingly towards the Asia-Pacific region and the South China Sea.

Islamic State 2.0?
Lurking in the background here is the spectre of an IS revival and the possibility of history repeating itself.

In 2011, President Barack Obama announced that US troops were pulling out of Iraq.

Although a small number have remained since, that drawdown, combined with a toxic Iraqi political mix and a burgeoning civil war across the border in Syria, created the perfect space for IS to eventually seize Mosul, the second city, and then control territory the size of a European country.

Could this now happen again? Could a reconstituted IS 2.0 once again sweep aside a demoralised Iraqi army deprived of US combat support?

It's a lot less likely, for several reasons.

IS was able to capitalise back then on the massive discontent felt by Iraq's Sunni Muslims towards the highly partisan Shia government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. He ran the country from 2006-2014 and systematically disenfranchised the Sunnis, pushing many into the waiting arms of IS.

Today's political equation, while far from perfect, is more acceptable to Iraq's competing ethnic groups.

Since the defeat of IS, the US and Britain have also spent a lot of time and effort in training up Iraq's counter-insurgency forces and that training is set to continue, with Nato backing.

Thirdly, IS' strategic leadership, or what's left of it, appears to be more focussed on exploiting the ungoverned spaces in Africa and Afghanistan than battling well-armed security forces in its Arab heartland.

"Attacks by IS insurgents appear to be containable by Iraqi government forces," says Brig Ben Barry, a former British Army officer and now defence analyst at the think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"Although," he adds, "without a political settlement with Iraqi Sunnis the root causes of the insurgency will remain."

IS was able to conduct a successful lightning campaign across the region in the summer of 2014 partly because the West had taken its eye off the ball in Iraq.

It then took an 80-nation coalition five long years and billions of dollars to defeat it and no-one wants to go through all that again.

So despite the US drawdown, which may still see small numbers of American troops remaining, the West will be watching to see if IS or any other jihadist groups look like using Iraq as a springboard to carry out transnational attacks, especially in the West.

"Should the US detect that IS in Iraq were preparing an attack on US interests outside Iraq, Washington would probably unilaterally attack," says Mr Barry. And with sizable resources nearby and offshore in the Gulf, the Pentagon certainly has the means to do so.

Iran's long game
The bigger, long-term picture here is one that favours Iran.

Ever since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 it has been trying to evict US forces from its neighbourhood and become the premier power in the region.

It has had little success in the Arab Gulf states where mistrust of Tehran runs deep and where the US military has facilities in all six countries, including the headquarters of the US Navy's powerful 5th Fleet in Bahrain.

But the US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003 removed the most effective obstacle to Iranian expansion, and Tehran has not passed up on the opportunity since then. It has successfully inserted its Shia militias into the fabric of Iraq's security establishment, and its allies have a powerful voice in parliament.

Syria's civil war has opened the door for a major Iranian military presence there, while next door in Lebanon Iran's ally Hezbollah has become the most potent force in the country.

Iran is playing the long game. Its leaders hope that if it keeps up the pressure, both overt and covert, it will eventually make the Middle East a region not worth America's effort to stay engaged in, militarily.

Hence the frequent rocket attacks on US bases and Iran's support for civil protest calling for US troops to leave.

An agreement that sees the end of US combat operations in Iraq will be seen by many in Tehran as a step in the right direction.

PapaDragon wrote:

Backman wrote:Just like Afghanistan, the US will opt for leaving the most possible chaos and dysfunction when they leave.  Things are really going to heat up in Iraq. It is going to be a disaster that Russia will be left with to try and clean up.

I doubt Russia will give any measurable amount of shits about Iraq

U.S. to Announce Iraq Troop Withdrawal

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and U.S. President Joe Biden are expected to announce the full withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. The announcement is set to be made as Biden hosts Kadhimi at the White House today.

Although the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has become a fraught topic in Washington, the Iraq withdrawal is unlikely to cause the same headaches—not least because the announcement is unlikely, in practice, to remove many of the 2,500 U.S. troops currently stationed there. As the New York Times reports, the withdrawal will mostly take place on paper, with many U.S. service members reclassified as serving in an advisory or training capacity.

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As Mina Al-Oraibi writes in Foreign Policy, Kadhimi’s visit comes as he is caught between both Washington and Tehran—and on the verge of losing balance.

The troop announcement may allow some breathing room for Kadhimi ahead of national elections in October. Only in power since last May, Kadhimi seeks to placate a large pro-Iran element in parliament, many of whom opposed his appointment following the deaths of Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani in a January 2020 U.S. airstrike at Baghdad International Airport. Iraq’s parliament swiftly voted to expel U.S. troops following the assassinations.

Like many governments still dealing with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Iraqi leaders have had to ride waves of public indignation as the death toll mounts and tragedy strikes. Earlier in July, Kadhimi suspended a number of officials following a lethal hospital fire in a coronavirus ward that killed at least 86 people. It followed a similar coronavirus ward fire in a Baghdad hospital in April that killed 82 people.

Still targets. Biden is aware the change in U.S. troop designations is unlikely to halt the barrage of rocket and drone attacks—attributed to Iran-backed militias—that have plagued U.S. personnel. Targets have ranged from clandestine CIA warehouses to private U.S. contractors, making any official U.S. withdrawal unlikely to limit the many options available to U.S. adversaries.

Lebanon on the horizon. Kadhimi’s visit comes soon after the White House hosted another Arab leader, Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, the king lauded his “family friendship” with the U.S. president and mentioned that his discussions with Biden included the latest country facing a crisis in the region: Lebanon. “When the bottom does fall out—and it will happen in weeks—what can we do as the international community to step in?” the king asked.

Writing from Beirut, Foreign Policy columnist Anchal Vohra explores the options in a country where hope seems to be lost, and Lebanese President Michel Aoun considers who to nominate as Lebanon’s next prime minister.

flamming_python wrote:After the debacle in Afghanistan I'm sure everyone half expects this country to collapse like a house of shit as soon as US troops leave as well

miketheterrible wrote:

flamming_python wrote:After the debacle in Afghanistan I'm sure everyone half expects this country to collapse like a house of shit as soon as US troops leave as well

Iraq has more to it than most think. But it would more likely fall to hands of Iran than anything