Perhaps this is another 'INTENDED ?" outcome of the Syria withdrawal ?
LOL ... TRUMP has everyone GUESSING ...
Will the US leave the KURDS armed ? What is the DEAL ?
Iraq Is Next: Here's Why All US Troops Could Be Out By End Of Trump's 1st Term
The US presidential plane landed in the darkness of the Iraqi military base of Ayn al-Assad in west Anbar with Donald Trump onboard. But by the time his plane took off three hours later, Trump left behind a protocol-political-parliamentary storm in Mesopotamia as Iraqi members of parliament requested the departure of the 5200 US forces from the country.
None of the three Iraqi leaders (Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, Speaker Mohammad al-Halbusi, President Barham Salih) came to receive Trump as all three rejected US conditions for such a meeting. Trump seems determined to leave Syria without interfering with who will control the territory behind him: on Friday morning the Syrian Army entered the outskirt of the city of Manbij following a deal between Kurdish leaders and the government of Damascus. Will he also end up leaving Iraq before the end of his term in January 2021?
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Tehran believes the US won’t permanently leave the Levant and Mesopotamia without leaving unrest behind. This gives its officials an additional motivation to lobby the Iraqi parliament for a US withdrawal from Iraq.
There is no doubt that Iraq is a close ally of Iran and not a fanatic supporter of the US. The Iraqi parliament can exert pressure over the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi to ask President Trump to pull out US troops before the end of his mandate in 2020.
The US establishment and the “Axis of the Resistance” can both connive and plan, but the last word will belong to the people of Iraq and to those who reject US hegemony in the Middle East, those who can accept losses and nurse their wounds in hopes of a better future.
