Iraq Is the One War Zone Trump Doesn’t Want to Leave
Donald Trump has harangued generals at the Pentagon over what he’s called the “loser war” in Afghanistan and their failure to end it. He has dismissed Syria as “sand and death,” and complained that the United States was supposed to be there for only a “short-term hit.” He has sought and failed to get rapid pullouts from both places. But he hasn’t made any such promise for Iraq. In fact, he has recently made the opposite case: that the roughly 5,000 U.S. troops there must stay.
When the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel U.S. troops last month—out of anger at the brazen strike that killed an Iranian general in Iraq without its government’s approval—Trump vowed not to leave at all, and threatened sanctions if forced to do so.
Why is Iraq the one country
