Rivals U.S. and Iran both support Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi—but he's under increasing pressure to step down amid widespread protests that could put US troops at risk
Still reeling from recent events in Syria, President Donald Trump and his administration face a looming crisis in neighboring Iraq. In a country where thousands of U.S. troops have died and thousands more are still deployed, both the United States and rival Iran are backing an embattled prime minister as popular calls for his ouster could threaten their influence and lead to civil war.
The term"Iraq Spring" is a reference to the so-called"Arab Spring" wave of demonstrations that swept the Arab World in 2011 as a mass movement against long-standing leaders failing to address socioeconomic issues that disproportionately affected the region's youth.
When Iraq held its first elections since ISIS' defeat last year, Sadr's Sairoon alliance came out on top, followed by Amiri's Fatah bloc. Both men have ties to Iran, but the former has increasingly pushed back on Tehran's growing influence in Baghdad, as the latter embraced it. "The key is that the Iraqis are partners of ours so the first thing is, what do they think would be helpful. The last thing we need to do—because sometimes our involvement can be cause for unrest by some, so we have to do that in a way that the Iraqi government, our partners, think would be helpful," Kaine said."I don't yet know what they think would be helpful, If anything.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois similarly said he"shares the concerns over this political unrest in the region but also about the role that Iran has played in the strife here." Citing Iraqi sources, Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey described pulling these diplomats out as"the U.S. washing their hands of the country."Though the beleaguered Iraqi leader has vowed to stay until Sadr and Amiri could come up with a replacement, one Iraqi intelligence official told"The young Iraqi Shiite youth want overthrow PM Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the Iranians don't want to lose him," the official said.
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