It's only fair. The Administration regularly maintains we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" and "Iraq is the Central Front on the Global War on Terror".
It only makes sense that the Iraqis, then, can claim that "we're fighting them for you over here. Now, show us the money"
Two high-ranking Iraqi government officials said today that their country was fighting international terrorists on its own soil on behalf of other countries and, as a result, should be compensated with economic and military assistance...
[The comments] suggest an emerging strategy from the fragile coalition government to portray Iraq as the global frontline against terrorism and deserving of compensation from other nations. Their reasoning is, in one sense, an extension of the view publicly adopted by the Bush Administration after the war to justify the 2003 invasion after its original reason -- to prevent Saddam Hussein from possessing weapons of mass destruction -- proved unfounded.
"We are fighting terrorism in Iraq, not only for Iraqis but also on behalf of the international community," said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister, during a news conference that covered a wide range of economic, security and anticorruption initiatives. The national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who also attended the news conference, followed that statement a short while later with one using remarkably similar language. "Iraq is now defending not only Iraqis but is also defending the region and the world," he said. "So what is the world giving us in return?"
I wonder how long it will take before this strategy backfires with Joe Sixpack and sees Iraqis branded as 'ungrateful' for the democracy we brought them?