U.S.-Iraq Post-Withdrawal Relations

CFR's Stephen Biddle discusses the increasing emphasis on non-military ties between the United States and Iraq. President Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took place amidst "widespread concern on the part of many inside Iraq and out, that Iraq may not be ready yet to maintain the stability of its own political system and its own security system without a U.S. military presence," says CFR's Stephen Biddle. The failure of negotiations over a continued U.S. presence in Iraq means that "there will be no possibility for anything that looks like a traditional, orthodox peacekeeping role," Biddle explains. "With that peacekeeping presence now gone, the non-military, economic, diplomatic, cultural relationship that President Obama and Prime Minister Maliki were negotiating over today is certainly the right way forward, and may help at the margin to stabilize Iraq's internal politics."

Stephen Biddle is Roger Hertog Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations

http://www.cfr.org/iraq/new-biddle/p26769

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