Approach to Iraq built on all that’s absent in Afghanistan

The Biden administration, after a rushed and chaotic withdrawal of

U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan, is taking a more careful and successful approach in Iraq.

President Joe Biden seems to be finding the sweet spot in Iraq: a small, continuing U.S. force that can train the Iraqi military, provide it with intelligence and buffer it against powerful neighbors — with buy-in from most Iraqi political factions. It’s a low-cost, sustainable way to maintain, at least for a time, U.S. power along a strategic fault line.

Afghanistan, in contrast, is a mess after the hasty departure of the last U.S. combat forces in July. The United States left without a stable government in Kabul, an accord among warring factions or regional support for Afghan security. “The situation is very concerning,” conceded U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in comments Tuesday to the Aspen Security Forum.

The decisive difference may be that in Iraq, Biden has a nimble partner in Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. He visited Washington last week and came away with a series of agreements that will attach Iraq more firmly to its Arab neighbors, Europe and the United States — without triggering a rupture with Iran.

The centerpiece of Kadhimi’s visit was what he called a “strategic partnership” with Washington, in which the United States will withdraw its remaining combat troops but keep in place a sizable force that can assist in training, intelligencesharing and other support activities. Kadhimi had told me in Baghdad last month that he wanted such a pact, despite objections from some Iranianbacked Shiite militias.

Iran opposes any U.S. military presence, in principle. But Tehran seems ready to tolerate a limited, continuing U.S. training and advisory role. Sources told me that after Kadhimi’s trip, Tehran instructed its Iraqi proxies to halt attacks on U.S. forces. The Shiite militias protested, but not very loudly.

Tehran wants the appearance of stability this week, too. President Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in Tuesday as Iran’s new leader, promising to “lift the tyrannical sanctions” imposed by the United States, which presumably means that he will be returning to the nuclear talks in Vienna soon. Raisi’s formal inauguration Thursday will be attended by officials from 73 countries, including a representative of the European Union. That’s a surprisingly large turnout for a notorious hard-liner.

Kadhimi is trying to tilt Iraq slightly toward its moderate Arab neighbors and away from revolutionary Iran. This subtle shift was symbolized by several agreements discussed during Kadhimi’s Washington visit. Iraq plans to purchase electricity from Jordan, under an agreement financed partly by the United Arab Emirates. It will connect to the electrical grid of the Gulf Arab countries, wired through Kuwait. And it hopes by 2025 to stop flaring natural gas and instead use it to produce its own power. All three steps will reduce Baghdad’s dependence on Tehran for electricity.

Iraq’s Arab identity is also reemerging thanks to close relationships with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iraq’s status may also be buffed by a regional summit organized by French President Emmanuel Macron, tentatively planned for this month in Baghdad.

Whether Kadhimi’s success abroad will translate into a renewed term as prime minister after October’s scheduled elections is hard to predict.

The Iraq story makes clear that there’s a better way to resolve “endless” wars than the pell-mell evacuation in Afghanistan.

The essential ingredients are a strong partner, an army that’s willing and able to fight, a regional strategy in which neighbors help build stability rather than undermine it, and a residual U.S. military presence. None of these factors seem to be present in Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani. All are evident in Kadhimi’s Iraq.

Iraq has been a story of U.S. failure for much of the past 20 years, and Biden has made some of those blunders.

But this summer, at least, Biden seems to have learned something from his past Iraqi mistakes — even as he makes tragic new ones in Afghanistan.