Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei called for US troops to leave Iraq as Iraq’s Prime Minister was in Iraq for his first official visit Saturday. The “U.S. military presence in Iraq is detrimental to countries and nations of the region.
You should take actions to make the US withdraw its troops from Iraq because wherever they have had enduring presence, forcing them out has become problematic,” the Ayatollah said. He went on to note that “If the Iraqi government and officials follow the U.S., they won’t have problems with them.
“But the current Iraqi government, parliament and political activists are unfavorable to the US, thus they devise plots to push this assembly out of the political scene in Iraq,” he concluded
The goal of Iran now is to pressure the US in Iraq and cement its ties with Baghdad. Facing massive floods, Iran is nevertheless using the Iraqi leader’s visit to push this narrative.
It comes amid reports at the Wall Street Journal that the US will designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran as a terrorist organization.
This could have major ramifications for Iran and also US policy in Iraq where the IRGC has been active in the past advising the Iraqi government in its war on ISIS. In recent months pro-Iranian groups in Iraq have threatened US troops.
Source » jpost