Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi’s first visit to Washington spurred more questions than it answered about whether the U.S. should step up its financial and military commitment to defeating the Islamic State and expelling it from the country.
All of Washington — the White House, Capitol Hill and the foreign policy think tank community — expected Iraq’s top leader to come hat in hand, asking for billions of dollars worth of drones and other arms to help his government beat back the Islamic State.
But after Abadi’s meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office Tuesday, the White House waved off questions about whether it would provide any additional support to Baghdad. Abadi, presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said, made no specific requests, no appeals for military equipment, aircraft or otherwise.
Obama concluded the meeting by announcing that the U.S. would provide $200 million in additional humanitarian aid to help people displaced by Islamic State fighting, a paltry sum compared to the billions Abadi reportedly wants to continue making progress against the Islamic State.
The sequence of events left Capitol Hill confused about exactly what Iraq needs from the United States and whether Abadi, who succeeded Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in midst of the ISIS crisis in September, will turn to Tehran or Moscow if the U.S. fails to provide it, as several experts predicted in the days leading up to his visit.
“We don’t usually just give out military equipment — they have to ask for it so I’m a little bit perplexed because I thought they were making a request,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., told the Washington Examiner.
Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would be generally supportive of an Iraqi request for weapons and more military support right now.
“But I wouldn’t be offering them, they have to request them,” he said, noting his grave concerns about Iran stepping into the void if the U.S. decides that its current commitment of airstrikes and military guidance is sufficient.
After so much American sacrifice in both blood and resources, “Iraq is not a place we can just walk away from, especially as ISIS is posing a grave threat to this country and our allies all around the world,” Engel said.
Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-Md., who previously served as the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, warned that Iraq could easily become another Yemen, a terrorism hotbed where the U.S. has lost its sphere of influence, without the necessary support from the U.S. and other allies.
“It’s an extremely volatile time, and Abadi wants to do what’s right for his country and he knows he needs support in order to fight ISIS and do the things that are necessary,” Ruppersberger said in a brief interview.
It’s a pivotal moment for Iraq, foreign policy experts across the political spectrum, agree. Abadi’s government, with the help of U.S. airstrikes and a number of independent militias, kicked the Islamic State out of Tikrit and has plans to take the fight to the group’s strongholds in Anbar province and Mosul.
The Pentagon claims U.S. and coalition airstrikes has helped retake at least 25 percent of territory the Islamic State captured and held since last summer. But the group still maintains control of key regions and continues to engage in brutal slayings against Shiites, Christians and other religious minorities, fomenting instability in the process.
“Iraq could move in many possible directions, most bad, but some potentially good,” the Brookings Institution’s Ken Pollack warned in a piece this week on Abadi’s trip to Washington. “It is absolutely critical that the Obama administration grasps this opportunity to put Iraq firmly on the right track.”
Pollack gives the Obama administration credit for seizing control of the key battle for Tikrit after Iranian-backed Shia militias launched an attack on Islamic State fighters there without even informing the Iraqi government or enlisting its army for support.
Abadi readily committed small numbers of troops to the fight and publicly took ownership of it late in the game. But Islamic State fighters initially succeeded in fending off the offensive. After a month, the Islamic State held its ground — that is, until the U.S. decided to jump in and provide air cover on condition that the militias back off.
“This was exactly the right move, and the administration deserves credit for seizing the opportunity,” Pollack wrote.
Abadi has made difficult, risky choices to pull Iraq in the right direction and deserves full U.S. backing in return, foreign policy experts say.
As Pollack notes, he disbanded the office of commander-in-chief, sacked the worst of the Maliki-appointed generals, accepted military advisers and opposed Hadi al-Ameri, Iran’s most important Iraqi ally, for the key post of minister of the interior.
Abadi also succeeded in striking two deals with the Kurds over oil, has reached out to Sunni leadership, armed Sunni fighters and requested the U.S. air support over Tikrit over the objections of Shia militia leaders.
Despite early success, Abadi still needs support from an important external power.
“There is no question that the United States could play that role, but doing so is going to mean committing to Iraq in a way that the Obama administration has never been willing to do more than rhetorically,” Pollack wrote.
Obama in remarks to reporters Tuesday strongly praised Abadi for his commitment to an inclusive government where Shia, Sunni and Kurds and working together to protect the nation’s sovereignty.
“In a significant change from the past, both Sunni and Kurdish leaders feel that they are heard in the halls of power — that they are participating in the governance in Baghdad,” he said.
But Obama declined to say whether he would commit to providing Baghdad additional weapons like Apache helicopters and drones and provided little insight into his thinking about investing more U.S. treasure in Iraq to help defeat the Islamic State.
“I think this is why we are having this meeting to make sure that we are continually improving our coordination to make sure that Iraqi security forces are in a position to succeed in our common mission,” he said before ending the questions and answer session with reporters.
