Before the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s retaliatory bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip, both Iraq and the United States had been “on the same page,” Mr. Mansour said, and hoped to negotiate a mutually beneficial troop withdrawal arrangement.
But now there are new pressures. Much as the two countries might want to go back to the pre-Oct. 7 discussions, “things are changing, and they are trying to deal with this new, emerging reality,” Mr. Mansour said.
Analysts who follow Iraq closely suggested that recent events have put the two countries at an inflection point, potentially forcing a faster withdrawal of U.S. troops than the United States — and many in Iraq — might have hoped for..
“The problem for both the Iraqi and U.S. governments, said Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at the London-based research group Chatham House, is “that neither wants an escalation and neither wants a continued presence of U.S. troops.”
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