Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, U.S. fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans to expand diplomatic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq and prying it from Iran’s tightening embrace. As recently as this summer, the State Department had planned to establish a consulate in the still-restive northern city of Mosul, with 700 staff members and security personnel. And as recently as the spring, the United States was moving ahead with plans for a consulate in Kirkuk.
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"U.S. Scales Back Diplomacy in Iraq Amid Fiscal and Security Concerns" by TIM ARANGO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, October 22, 2011
BAGHDAD — Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace....
Taken together, the shrinking of the United States’ military and diplomatic ambitions underscores the reality that a post-America Iraq is taking shape more rapidly and completely than many Iraqis and Americans had envisioned. That has heartened many Iraqis and Americans, weary of more than eight years of war and occupation, but left others fearful.
“The United States should not turn its back on Iraq,” Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Saturday. “Iraq needs the United States, and the United States needs Iraq.”
The shifting relationship comes at a delicate time for Iraq and the region. The country finds itself surrounded by nations undergoing significant change.
Iran, which has long sought to increase its influence on its neighbor, has been emboldened by the Arab Spring, which ousted or diminished several Western-leaning leaders. At the same time, Syria has been suffering through months of unrest that Iraqi leaders fear could spill over the border, reopening what was once a thoroughfare for fighters from Al Qaeda.
American officials emphasize that they still plan a major increase in diplomatic and cultural programs — the building blocks of so-called soft power — scattering branch offices across the country in the largest diplomatic mission since the Marshall Plan.
BAGHDAD — Beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace....
Taken together, the shrinking of the United States’ military and diplomatic ambitions underscores the reality that a post-America Iraq is taking shape more rapidly and completely than many Iraqis and Americans had envisioned. That has heartened many Iraqis and Americans, weary of more than eight years of war and occupation, but left others fearful.
“The United States should not turn its back on Iraq,” Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Saturday. “Iraq needs the United States, and the United States needs Iraq.”
The shifting relationship comes at a delicate time for Iraq and the region. The country finds itself surrounded by nations undergoing significant change.
Iran, which has long sought to increase its influence on its neighbor, has been emboldened by the Arab Spring, which ousted or diminished several Western-leaning leaders. At the same time, Syria has been suffering through months of unrest that Iraqi leaders fear could spill over the border, reopening what was once a thoroughfare for fighters from Al Qaeda.
American officials emphasize that they still plan a major increase in diplomatic and cultural programs — the building blocks of so-called soft power — scattering branch offices across the country in the largest diplomatic mission since the Marshall Plan.
Soft power is a fancy way to say economic and political coercion.
But the expansion of a diplomatic presence will be much smaller than imagined, a victim not only of budgetary constraints but also of a growing awareness that the decision to withdraw American soldiers makes it much harder for diplomats to safely do their work....
The reactions in Baghdad on Friday night and Saturday, after Mr. Obama’s remarks, were muted, a possible reflection of the country’s mixed emotions.
Many Iraqis — especially ethnic Kurds, secular intellectuals and Sunnis skittish about Shiite power — have expressed anxiety about what the country might become without an American military presence.
But others, like those who recently celebrated the closing of a major American base in Mosul, saw only possibilities in the increasing signs that the United States was definitively pulling back. Students, poets and local officials raised the Iraqi flag on Monday and held placards that read, “Congratulations to the city of Mosul on this great day, the last occupier soldier has left.”
One celebrant, Sheik Shakir Ghalib, said: “The day of the end of the occupation means such a great happiness I can’t describe it. The happiness is overwhelming to me. As I see the people of my city celebrate the departure of the Americans from the city of prophets, my eyes cry and we pray for God to bless our martyrs and release our detainees.”
The discussions over the last year about America’s future role in Iraq, both within the United States government and between the two countries, have laid bare the diminishing ability of the United States to shape outcomes in Iraq, as well as a relative lack of interest in a Congress consumed by domestic issues.
“I guess very thoughtful people believe there should be some residual presence in Iraq,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former United States ambassador to Iraq who now runs the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. “But there are many Americans who don’t want to hear the word ‘Iraq’ and are not really behind a continued presence.”
Given that, Mr. Hill said, “I’m not surprised there is downward gravity about what we really want to see there.”
The State Department’s plans still need approval from the Iraqi government and financing from Congress. The department has requested $6.2 billion to finance its operations for the 2012 fiscal year.
That is what my printed Globe carried.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed the ties that will remain — and issued what appeared to be a barely veiled warning to Iran.
“As we open this new chapter in a relationship with a sovereign Iraq, to the Iraqis we say: America is with you as you take your next steps in your journey to secure your democracy,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. “And to the countries in the region, especially Iraq’s neighbors, we want to emphasize that America will stand with our allies and friends, including Iraq, in defense of our security and interests.”
“Obama’s announcement to withdraw all U.S. troops is a victory for the Iraqis, but we have to be aware of Iranian influences and their attempts to exert control over Iraq,” said Haidar al-Mulla, a spokesman and lawmaker with Iraqiya, the political bloc that won the most seats in last year’s parliamentary elections.
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