“Withdrawal” from Iraq… a trap for the next US president
In 2021, President Joe Biden announced the end of the combat mission in Iraq, but kept 2,500 US troops there and 900 in Syria to lead the international coalition fighting ISIS.
Now, with just five months left in his presidency, his administration is working with the Iraqi government on a plan to declare that mission over, too—and to announce a timetable for withdrawing those troops. That could allow Biden to claim that he has ended “another forever war,” as he boasted when he pulled U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. But there’s a problem: While Biden wants to declare “mission accomplished,” it’s not done, and there’s no follow-up plan in place.
Despite the good intentions, if Biden formally agrees to end the counter-ISIS mission, he could set the stage for a deepening Middle East crisis that will be the burden of his successor. For months, American and Iraqi military officials have made no secret of the fact that they have been negotiating a deal. It would formally end Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition that began in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State, and would call for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq within two years, several officials told me. But the announcement, originally scheduled for this month, has now been postponed because of “recent developments,” the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said last week.
These developments include attacks by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. forces in Iraq and rising tensions with Iran after the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month. But announcing a U.S. troop withdrawal, even with a two-year timetable, would signal a U.S. abandonment of the region precisely at a time when allies are looking to Washington to bolster deterrence against Iran. Worse still, the deal would undermine the ability of the 77-nation coalition to coordinate against the Islamic State precisely at a time when the group is resurgent.
Technically, containing Iran is not part of Operation Inherent Resolve, but U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria are essential to achieving that goal. Although the Iraqi leadership, led by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, has publicly called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces, many Iraqi officials privately fear that such a move would hand Iraq over to Iranian control.
The two-year timeline between the declaration of the end of the counter-ISIS mission and the withdrawal of U.S. forces is intended to give both sides room to adjust the plan if the threat increases or if Iraqi security forces are unable to assume counterterrorism responsibilities in time, but this deliberate ambiguity has led to considerable confusion. A State Department spokesman said last week, for example, that the United States is not negotiating a “withdrawal” of U.S. forces from Iraq, but a “transition” to a bilateral security agreement.
Officials told me that a subsequent bilateral security agreement between the United States and Iraq could eventually lead to most American forces remaining there to continue the fight against ISIS, which could, in theory, mitigate the risk of the anti-ISIS coalition dissolving.
But such a follow-on agreement would have to be negotiated by the next U.S. president. If those negotiations fail, U.S. forces would have to withdraw entirely, which is what happened in 2008 after George W. Bush signed an agreement to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq. Barack Obama tried and failed to negotiate a follow-on agreement to keep some troops there. Three years later, he ended up sending thousands of U.S. troops back to Iraq when ISIS seized territory the size of Virginia.
In 2021, Biden himself was forced to implement the withdrawal agreement from Afghanistan signed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. When the withdrawal went badly, Biden found it useless to say that the plan was not his idea. Now he is presenting his successor with a similar dilemma: either back away from Biden’s withdrawal plan and suffer politically, or go ahead and risk a security disaster. “Biden sees this as part of his legacy, to be able to say, ‘I ended these forever wars,’” says Kenneth Pollack, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“(Kamala) Harris may think this will allow her to hold Joe Biden accountable later,” he said, adding, “Politically, this all makes sense for both of them. But in reality, it will be worse than either of them probably imagined.” No one wants to see U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria forever.
But declaring the mission accomplished does not end the mission. Ending “forever wars” is easier said than done. If the United States abandons its commitment to Middle East security now, it may have to learn that lesson at a high cost next time.
*American political analyst
Published by special arrangement with The Washington Post Licensing and Submission Service.
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