America must remain in Iraq to defeat Iran and prevent Iran from defeating our long war against tyranny and hostility toward the West in Iraq.
It’s been three weeks since the U.S. threatened to bomb pro-Iran Iraqi militias unless Iraq eliminated the threat first. The American position was that Iran was at war with Americans in Iraq and said so frequently and publicly. All the major Iraqi Shia religious leaders have called for the disbanding of all PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces) militias, in part because Iran was rapidly turning the entire PMF into an Iraqi version of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization called Kataib Hezbollah. Founded in the 1980s with Iranian help, the original Hezbollah still takes orders from Iran and has dominated Lebanese politics for over three decades. Most Lebanese want Hezbollah gone but a heavily armed militia with enormous economic power in Lebanon is difficult to disband. Iraqis want Kataib Hezbollah gone and cannot understand why their prime minister does not act. Fear probably has a lot to do with the delay. In Lebanon Iran had several senior Lebanese politicians assassinated for being too openly hostile to Hezbollah. The personal danger for the Iraqi prime minister is based on fact, not just speculation.
The new prime minister (Mustafa al Kadhimi) is decidedly hostile to Iran. He has already ordered the removal of many pro-Iran commanders in the security services and disbanded some units that were dangerously pro-Iran. Kadhimi went to the U.S. in late August to meet with the American leader and discuss improving U.S.-Iraq relations. Such a meeting was important because Kadhimi is the first post-Saddam (2003) prime minister that is not heavily influenced/controlled by Iran.
Some people opposed to the war argued that the Iraq War just "gave" Iraq to Iran. That was nonsense. We defeated a hostile and evil regime. But that was not the end of the job. We then defeated a number of enemies in Iraq--including al Qaeda and Iran--winning much.
I wanted to stay in to build on the military victory. Iraqis feared the Iranians--and rightly so. Sadly we left in 2011 and had to reverse course in 2014 after massive setbacks at the hands of ISIL and Iran. We overcame these challenges, too, extending our wins through new phases of the war.
It amazes me that people don't recognize that we won the Iraq War. And now we have a better Iraqi prime minister as most Iraqis recognize that Iran threatens Iraq's future.
In some ways we've moved beyond an Iraq-centric war that we've waged on and off since 1991, to one where the main fight is against Iran, and Iraq is one front in that war.
Don't give up after our long efforts and sacrifices to achieve what we have. And letting Iran under the nutball mullahs run free could reverse our gains and make things much worse.
