As Iraq marks the 16th anniversary of the US-led invasion of the country in March 2019, the looming question is whether Washington will keep its troops in Iraq amid mounting calls that US forces should leave the beleaguered country after its planned withdrawal from Syria. Pro-Iran Shia militia groups have always hit out at the US military presence in Iraq, but they stepped up their demands for US troop withdrawal following the end of combat operations against the Islamic State (IS) militants in their last urban strongholds last year. However, while it remains to be seen how the Trump administration will re-evaluate its Iraq policy following the withdrawal from Syria, its actions have exposed the limitations of Washington's power in the Middle East, and this will certainly be exploited by its adversaries. US President Donald Trump ordered on 19 December a full withdrawal of US forces from Syria, citing victory over IS. The announcement was a dramatic turnaround in US strategy that analysts say could potentially encourage Iran and its proxies in Iraq to push for a similar withdrawal. There are currently more than 7,000 US service personnel in Iraq, which the Pentagon says are advising and assisting Iraqi security forces in the fight against IS militants that have lost their so-called “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria but are not entirely defeated. The controversy over the troops' future deepened after Trump made a clandestine visit to an American base in Iraq last week, many Iraqis considering this to be an arrogant affront to the country's sovereignty. During his three-hour trip to Iraq, Trump did not meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul- Mahdi, but the two men spoke by telephone. Abdul-Mahdi later said there had been a “disagreement” over how to conduct a meeting. White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said a meeting between Trump and Abdul-Mahdi could not be arranged due to security concerns and the short notice of the trip. Iraqi officials, however, said Abdul-Mahdi had declined Trump's request to meet him at the Al-Assad military base on the border with Syria, some 180 km west of Baghdad. Trump's undiplomatic request struck a nerve with many Iraqis and in particular with pro-Iran Shia political groups who were quick to heap scorn on Trump over his visit, calling it a “blatant violation” of Iraq's sovereignty. Lawmakers representing long-time US adversary Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr called for an emergency session of parliament to discuss Trump's visit. Pro-Iran militia leaders demanded the immediate expulsion of US troops from Iraq. Under a plan forged by then Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki and former US president George W Bush in 2008, the two governments agreed on the withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011. In spite of the pact, the US left behind a small contingent of marines and a large army of private contractors and security personnel under the control of the US Embassy in Baghdad, however. The number of US troops increased after the US led an international coalition to fight IS militants after they took over huge swathes of Iraqi territory in summer 2014. In 2017, news reports in the US media said that Iraqi and US officials had started negotiations on keeping US forces in Iraq after the fighting ended under the pretext of training and advising Iraqi forces still waging a campaign against the militant group. The deal would have outlined the legal and diplomatic parameters underpinning a long-term US military presence in the country. But the agreement was apparently shelved after then prime minister Haider Al-Abadi refused to keep US “combat troops” in Iraq once IS the militants were defeated. Now that his secretive Christmas visit to the military base in Iraq has re-triggered the protests, Trump faces the difficult task of devising a new plan on the presence of US troops in Iraq within a broader strategy on US Middle East policies. Trump's Iraq policy is largely seen as being in disarray. Contrary to Trump's claims that his strategy is aimed at containing Iran, the Islamic Republic has solidified its influence in Iraq, and it is expected to increase its presence in Syria once Washington checks out. Deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Hussein Salami on Sunday hailed Trump's decision to pull US troops out from Syria as “a clear American retreat which embodies the US strategic failure.” Indeed, Iran has immediately sought to work with its allies to fill the power vacuum in Syria. On 30 December, Abdul-Mahdi said Iraq was ready to play a bigger role in Syria as US troops withdraw from the neighbouring nation. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on 30 December said he was authorising Iraqi forces to attack IS operatives inside Syria without waiting for permission from the authorities in Damascus. The Syrian state-owned news agency SANA said the two allies would coordinate their fight against the extremists ahead of the planned US withdrawal from Syria. Underscoring the new commitments, Iraqi warplanes attacked on Monday what an Iraqi statement described as a building where IS leaders were meeting near Deir Al-Zor in Syria. Iran's readiness to fill the power vacuum after the US troop withdrawal together with its allies has highlighted the US need to develop a coherent strategy for Iraq and Syria to achieve its goals. US Senator Lindsey Graham disclosed on Sunday that Trump could be ready to “reconsider” the planned pull-out, which had drawn bipartisan criticism and forced the resignation of US defence secretary James Mattis and US envoy to forces fighting to defeat IS Brett McGurk. Though Trump remains committed to bringing American servicemen and women home, Graham said after a two-hour lunch with Trump that the president would continue to weigh the greater regional dynamics. Graham, who had called on Trump earlier to reverse his decision to withdraw the US troops from Syria, told the TV channel CNN after a meeting with Trump that the president had not reversed his Syria decision. Nevertheless, the decision to drawdown the US forces in Syria has underlined the question of whether Trump can come up with a coherent and functioning US strategy in both Iraq and Syria that can help bring stability to the Middle East. So far, there is nothing to indicate that Trump is backtracking on his campaign pledge to end the protracted US involvement in Iraq and Syria. On Monday he said he was determined to “slowly” bring US troops home from Syria. “If anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an IS-loaded mess when I became president, they would be a national hero,” Trump tweeted. If Trump is now celebrating the withdrawal from Syria as a feat he has accomplished, the question is when he will order US troops out of Iraq and if outcries by pro-IranIraqi groups will accelerate this. Contrary to what some American pundits argue, that the policy of withdrawing troops from the region is making US policies in the Middle East less effective, Trump's approach could be even more far-reaching. If ever there was a time for Iran and its proxies to celebrate America's folly in the Middle East, allowing them to build more regional influence, it would be now. It goes without saying that US adversaries like Russia will also benefit from the absence of American forces in the region as it slips further into instability. The United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus last week, and other Arab countries are expected to follow suit soon. The Arab League is reportedly poised to re-admit the regime of Al-Assad seven years after its expulsion from the regional grouping. While earlier US administrations also manipulated America's regional allies, they rarely did so on such a large scale. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the United States has proven once again that it is an untrustworthy partner. There is something positive, however, in this American retreat, as seen by some critics. “There is a liberating element in this withdrawal. It is a step towards salvation from the huge illusion of America being a world power,” wrote Burhan Ghalioun, a French-Syrian professor of sociology at the Université de Paris III Sorbonne, in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Monday.
