Don't Let "Strategic Dialogue" Sink Iraq

The third time was the charm. After two previous nominees failed to win parliamentary approval, In the early morning hours of May 7, 2020, Mustafa al-Kadhimi formally assumed office, becoming Iraq’s sixth prime minister since the 2004 restoration of sovereignty. Kadhimi has long been Washington’s first choice. He is a noted liberal. Prior to entering politics, he was a writer and human rights activist. In June 2016, he was a surprise appointee to head the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, and he distinguished himself. He was a quiet leader who did not seek higher office. He professionalized the service and demanded its employees always respect the rule-of-law. He presided over the defeat of the Islamic State but did not seek the limelight. He also became the mediator of choice: not only between Sunnis and Shi'ites and Arabs and Kurds but also between Washington and Tehran. Unlike many other intermediaries, Kadhimi preferred to remain in the shadows.

Kadhimi faces an onslaught of challenges that dwarf those faced by his predecessors. With 90 percent of state revenue coming from oil, he will struggle to make payroll. Tapping into hard currency reserves will destabilize the currency and spark inflation. COVID-19 may have dispersed the protestors, but it has not diminished their demands. Indeed, the chief mandate Kadhimi has is to implement electoral reforms and then take Iraq to the polls. This is easier said than done as meaningful reform requires the acceptance of the Iraqi powerbrokers whose power it will diminish. Resurgent Islamic State activity and Iranian-backed militias operating out of government control will further challenge Kadhimi.

Iraq’s stability depends on Kadhimi successfully addressing these challenges. Washington, however, may soon upend the Iraqi apple cart. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that, in just one month, the United States and Iraq will begin a “strategic dialogue.” “All strategic issues between our two countries will be on the agenda, including the future presence of the United States forces in that country, and how best to support an independent and sovereign Iraq,” Pompeo said.

On its surface, recalibrating relations is overdue: It has been more than a decade since Iraq and the United States agreed to a Status of Forces Agreement and a Strategic Framework Agreement, the impetus to the new dialogue appears to strategic impatience in Washington. President Trump has long signaled its desire to leave Iraq. During an October 26, 2016 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump declared, “The people opposing us are the same people — and think of this — who’ve wasted $6 trillion on wars in the Middle East — we could have rebuilt our country twice — that have produced only more terrorism, more death, and more suffering.” The State Department has followed suit. When Shi’ite militiamen fired a rocket in the general direction of the U.S. consulate in Basra, Pompeo ordered it shut. In February 2019, as Iraqi populists demanded U.S. withdrawal, Joey Hood, then charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and now a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State threw fuel on the fire by publicly stating, “We are here at the invitation of the Iraqi government. And if the Iraqi government requests us to leave, we will leave.” Certainly, the sudden U.S. pullback from Syrian Kurdistan and forthcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan looms large. 

Trump has reportedly grown frustrated with both the expense of the U.S. Iraq presence as well as the mission set. The United States has spent well over $25 billion training the Iraqi army, and he increasingly asks why such training should continue into perpetuity if it has been successful, and why the Pentagon bothers if it is not. Likewise, continuing to assist Iraqi operations against the Islamic State contravenes Trump’s repeated political declarations of the Islamic State’s defeat. Trump would also be right to ask why the United States pays the salary of the Kurdish peshmerga when Kurdish leaders have enough money to purchase estates in McLean, Virginia, and Beverly Hills, California.

Abandoning Iraq, however, will backfire, not only for Iraq but also for U.S. strategic interests. The best defense against Iranian ambitions in the region is not a strong offense but rather a nationalist and self-sufficient Iraq able to defend itself against all regional powers. Here, Kadhimi’s government represents a dream team: Not only was the prime minister a former intelligence chief, but also his new defense minister was a former ground forces commander, and his new interior minister was an army chief-of-staff. President Barham Salih, previously living in Washington, has a liberal outlook.

Bases will be on the table, but consolidating all U.S. forces into Iraqi Kurdistan would be wrong-headed. Logistically it would be a nightmare, as it would force the Pentagon to rely on the mercurial Turkish leader Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an for re-supply. Abandoning Baghdad to Tehran would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at a time when Iraqis regularly protest against Iranian overreach and repeatedly burn Iranian consulates. Finally, it would be a mistake to underestimate just how close Iraqi Kurdish leaders are to Iran.

 Trump may be right that it is time to move on, but to help Iraq pull itself back from the precipice, he should focus on the economic, rather than just the military. Many foreign service firms have exited Iraq's oil sector both because of low prices and COVID-19 concerns. Prices will again rise, however. American firms can invest now not only for their own sake and to give Washington non-military influence, but also because the U.S. commercial presence denies the same opportunities to Iran. Likewise, American investment to capture gas now flared will help Iraq divorce itself from reliance on Iran for electricity. American support for modern banking and finance in Iraq could also provide a basis for investment to help provide the jobs necessary as Iraq’s population nears 50 million.

The State Department usually does not do commerce well—few Foreign Service Officers have business backgrounds or understand finance—but it should take a lesson from countries that do: China, Turkey and the Emirates. The face of the U.S. presence in Iraq over the next decade should not only be Navy SEALs and Army Special Operators, but also investors and businessmen.  To simply repeat in Iraq, however, what the precipitous withdrawals Trump ordered in Syria and Afghanistan and President Obama oversaw in Iraq will empower Iran and undercut the most competent leadership team post-war Iraq has had. The choice is Trump’s.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.