Time to Get Tough on Iraq
THE next president of the United States must fundamentally reassess America’s broken relationship with Iraq.
Under two American presidents now, the regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has operated in an atmosphere of immunity while the United States government focused on pacifying Iraq and finding its way to leave. Fearful of how criticisms of Iraq reflect on American policy, and now resolutely opposing any re-entanglement in Iraqi affairs, Washington’s approach has been simply to look the other way while Iraq runs roughshod over America’s strategic interests in the region.
The current clash of interests is over Syria. It is both right and in the interests of the United States that Bashar al-Assad’s brutal reign there comes to an end. And at the very least, the United States should be able to prevent its own allies from aiding the transfer of arms to the Assad regime.
An intelligence report cited by Reuters last month said that Iraq has been allowing Iran to funnel “personnel and tens of tons of weapons” through Iraqi airspace and into Syria “on almost a daily basis.” And according to The New York Times, buses carrying pilgrims to a Shiite shrine in Syria are reported to have also carried weapons, supplies and fighters to aid the Assad regime.
Of course the Obama administration is beseeching Iraq to give up this practice, but the response should have been ferocious.