Rapprochement with US Reinforces Iran Hand in Iraq

Raymond   Tanter, president of the US Iran Policy Committee, writing in The Hill on last September 20, labeled the "The Baghdad regime" a "naysayer" and " evildoer" ally of the US and wondered " of what value is one of the largest U.S. embassies in the world if American diplomats cannot persuade the Iraqi regime" to commit to its SFA accord.

Nonetheless, the US seems ambivalent.

Iraqi PM Maliki and US Prresident Obama shake hands in Washington, D.C. in 2011
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On last September 14 Ramesh Sepehrrad noted in a UPI report that, " More often than not, Washington hesitates to hold Baghdad accountable" for its Syria stance.

Early enough however, President Obama provided an explanation: The difference between the U.S. and Iraqi responses to the Syrian conflict were simply "tactical disagreements," Obama said on December 12, 2011, quoted by CBS News, adding he had "absolutely no doubt" that the Iraqi "naysaying" was " not based on considerations of what Iran would like to see." The US president, like his predecessor Bush, trusts al-Maliki, but if he did not he could nonetheless count on the bilateral strategic SFA to rein him in.

Before the US-Russian latest deal on the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal, Washington, pursuant to the SFA, asked Baghdad to monitor the Iraqi airspace throughout the duration of the planned US strikes on Syria, to prevent Iran from using it, an Iraqi military source told al-Arab London-based daily on last September 10.

As recently as last August 15, al-Maliki's Foreign Affairs Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, co-chaired with his American counterpart, John Kerry, the meeting in Washington, D.C. of the Political and Diplomatic Joint Coordination Committee (JCC), which was established as a result of the SFA. They agreed to convene the next JCC in Baghdad.

In the joint statement issued after the meeting, " Both delegations emphasized their commitment to close and ongoing security cooperation, noting in this regard the Memorandum of Understanding on security cooperation signed at the Defense and Security JCC in December 2012, the inaugural U.S.-Iraq Joint Military Committee (JMC) hosted by U.S. Central Command in June 2013."

However, this US strategic confidence is almost daily contested in Iraq.

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