Biden is preparing a new anti-Tehran ambassador to Iraq
6-16-2024
Biden is preparing a new anti-Tehran ambassador to IraqUS President Joe Biden’s nominee for the position of ambassador to Iraq, Tracy Jacobson, surprised official and political Iraqi circles with unusual statements about Iranian influence and militias loyal to Tehran. Jacobson presented her opening speech before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and expressed her gratitude to President Biden and the Secretary of State for their confidence in her nomination. For this “vital position”.
It seems that the new ambassador, who will succeed another controversial ambassador, Elena Romanski, wanted to enter the Iraqi scene directly regarding the Iranian file. Jacobson confirmed that she will work closely with the committee to promote American interests in Iraq.
She said: “Our army provides vital support to the Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga in the Kurdistan region. Ten years after our forces returned to Iraq to fight ISIS, it is time for our army to move into a new role. “I will ensure that any transition from Operation Inherent Resolve to a bilateral security arrangement is directed toward defeating ISIS and ensuring Iraq’s security.”
Jacobson stressed the importance of Iraq strengthening its relations with its neighbors, noting the positive steps taken by the Sudanese Prime Minister in this direction.
Jacobson pointed out that the presence of economic development, and a government capable of providing services to its people, reduces the attraction of terrorism, and also reduces the influence of militias allied with Iran, which pose a great danger to the future of the country. Iran is a “malignant actor”
and she said, “Iran is a malicious actor in Iraq.” “It is destabilizing to the region, and we realize that the main threat to Iraq is the militias allied with Iran.”
Observers believe that Jacobson’s appointment may mean a new path for American policy in conjunction with the transition of the security relationship after the international coalition to a sustainable security partnership, according to Iraqi government statements.
Since assuming office about two years ago, Al-Sudani wanted the relationship with the countries of the coalition against ISIS to be governed by a new equation different from what it was before.
At the beginning of this year, Al-Sudani announced the end of the international coalition’s mission and the transformation of relations between his countries and Iraq into bilateral relations. He also agreed with President Joe Biden in Washington to reactivate the strategic framework agreement between the two countries signed in 2008, which was ratified by the Iraqi parliament.
At a time when Sudanese made pledges to the parties demanding the withdrawal of the Americans from Iraq as occupying forces to end this presence in stages in accordance with the “Strategic Framework” agreement, it appears that the armed factions loyal to Iran were not convinced by all these pledges, because they have another strategy in dealing with the Americans that is not in In light of the nature of the Iraqi-American relationship, but rather in light of the critical balance between Washington and Tehran.
At the beginning of the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, Washington sent an ambassador, acting as governor-general, whose entire experience was combating terrorism, which did not pose a threat when the previous regime fell. He was Paul Bremer.
Although Bremer continued to rule Iraq for a full year, while it was governed in form by a ruling council composed of the so-called founding fathers of the post-Saddam Hussein regime.
While Bremer wanted to use his experience in combating terrorism, when he left the country in 2004, clouds of terrorist movements were clouding over the skies of Iraq, and he was replaced by a Muslim ambassador of Afghan origin, Zalmay Khalilzad, who quickly entered the power equation in a country that had just begun to share positions along sectarian lines. (Sunni – Shiite) and ethnic (Arab – Kurdish) without being able to achieve any progress at the level of strengthening constitutional institutions.
During the following years, Washington sent many ambassadors to Baghdad, none of them left an imprint in the context of relations between the two countries, while the matter differed with Romanski, and it is about to be more different with the next ambassador.
In this context, Yassin Al-Bakri, professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University, told Asharq Al-Awsat, “The new ambassador’s mission will be to arrange the transition in the security relationship and arrange the roles assigned to Washington, and she will try to gain the largest space of freedom of movement for Washington’s goals, while the confrontation between Washington and And Tehran is putting more pressure on its arms in Iraq.