On Monday, US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani announced their continued efforts to remove the US-led coalition fighting terrorism from the nation.
Their discussion at the White House coincided with escalating tensions in the Middle East following Iran, Iraq’s neighbor, attacking US ally Israel with a huge aerial strike over the weekend.
2014 saw the formation of the US-led military coalition in an effort to combat the Islamic State group, which at the time had taken over large portions of neighboring Syria and about a third of Iraq.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Israel launched a six-month war against Palestinian militants backed by Iran in Gaza. Iraq has been attempting to avoid escalating regional tensions at this time.
Since then, Israel’s principal ally, the United States, has been the target of numerous attacks by armed groups with ties to Iran, some of whom are located in Iraq.
Iraq fiercely objected to a US drone strike that killed an Iraqi militia leader in February as revenge for an attack that killed three US service members in Jordan, trying to stave off the escalation of hostilities between the US and Iran.
However, since then, Washington and Baghdad have begun discussions over the coalition’s future as tensions between them have decreased.
Biden and Sudani stated in a joint statement that they talked about the coalition’s “natural evolution” “in light of the significant progress that has been made in ten years.”
They indicated that they would now focus on matters like as the ongoing threat posed by IS, providing support to the weak Iraqi government, and strengthening Iraqi security forces.
“The two leaders affirmed they would review these factors to determine when and how the mission of the Global Coalition in Iraq would end,” the statement read.
Transitioning to a bilateral arrangement that would allow the US to maintain some forces in Iraq would be the goal.
As part of the coalition, the US presently maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria.
During Sudani’s first visit to Washington after taking office in 2022, Biden and Sudani also talked about the volatile situation in the region in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel.
When they first met in the Oval Office, Sudani asked all parties to exercise “restraint” in order to “stop the expansion of the area of conflict.”
In the effort to repel the attack, US Marines stationed close to the northern Iraqi city of Erbil used a Patriot missile battery to bring down an Iranian ballistic missile.
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