Iraqi Prime Minister Supports Open-Ended US Troop Presence

Iraq’s new prime minister told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Sunday that he supports a continued US troop presence in Iraq, breaking the silence on the issue since he came into office in October 2022.

“We think that we need the foreign forces,” Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said. The US currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq, but the presence is a divisive issue in Iraqi politics as al-Sudani’s supporters and Iraqi Shia groups have pressed him to reconsider the stationing of US forces in the country.

American troops are in the country to train government forces against ISIS, but in recent years, the US has been at odds with Iraqi Shia militias that it once allied with to fight ISIS. Tensions came to a head in January 2020 when the US killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike in Baghdad.