On Tuesday afternoon, Defense Secretary Mark Esper took his turn at spinning chaos as if it were an intentional strategy. According to Esper, the United States is not withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Instead, it will just conduct a little “reposition” of U.S. troops. And, of course, Esper delivered the requisite number of threats that the U.S. would respond in force if Iran responded in force to the U.S. responding in force, etc.
While Esper denies that the U.S. is preparing to pull out of Iraq, and the Pentagon makes it officially clear that the letter it sent to Iraqi officials to tell them the U.S. was moving toward the exits was a mistake, the Iraqi prime minister has made it clear that he’s treating that letter seriously. According to The Washington Post, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi is considering the letter a withdrawal announcement, no matter what the Pentagon is saying now.
And the other thing that the Iraqi prime minster said makes the claims of “mistake” seem like a massive understatement. According to the Abdul-Mahdi’s office, the letter from the Department of Defense to the Iraqi government was actually sent twice. After it was sent the first time, Abdul-Mahdi noted that the attached Arabic translation didn’t completely match the English version of the document. He returned the letter, and then the DOD sent it again. The idea that this was a “draft letter” that was only circulated around Washington for comment seems indefensible, no matter what department was involved.
The truth is that Trump’s actions have put the United States in an absolutely untenable position in Iraq. Many, if not most Americans would eagerly welcome the news that the United States was winding down operations in Iraq and withdrawing its remaining troops. But Trump has put American forces in the position of withdrawing from Iraq in the face of crumbling relations with a government that on Tuesday officially labelled U.S. forces in the country terrorists.
For years, support for Iran within Iraq has been falling sharply. With a majority of Iraqis—and even a majority of Iraqi Shiites—calling for a decreased Iranian presence, it seemed that Iraq was on the brink of genuinely positioning itself as an opposing Shiite-majority state that could have stood as a barrier to Iran’s genuine expansionist ambitions. But Donald Trump’s actions in attacking Shiite militia inside Iraq immediately flipped the concern of protesters away from Tehran and toward Washington. The assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani only put additional speed behind moves to expel U.S. troops from Iraq.
There has definitely been a mistake. But it wasn’t the withdrawal letter. And unless the U.S. wants to fight the Iraqi army that it trained and equipped, we are leaving.