Iraq-U.S. Pact Angers Syria
Syrian President Bashar Assad has said that the pact that would allow the United States a military presence in Iraq for 3 years has led to ‘instability’ in the region. Syria sees the pact as a way for the United States to attack Iraq’s neighbors using Iraq as a base, as evidenced by the U.S. raid into neighboring Syria a couple weeks ago. Iran is also a neighbor of Iraq, of course, and Assad may have been making a veiled reference to the United States’ hard-line rhetoric against Iran as well.
In a move proving the Iraqi government’s concern with relations with its neighbors, Iraq has reportedly asked for a ban on the U.S. attacking its neighbors from Iraq. There has been no word on what the U.S. will do about this, but that would also have broader implications should U.S. and Iranian rhetoric (or that of any other neighboring country) escalate into some kind of military action. This would of course also hamper the U.S.’s recent policy of crossing borders to target suspected terrorists (which it has now done in both Syria and Pakistan). Any U.S. failure to comply could endanger their legal ability to have a presence in Iraq, and further damage relations between the U.S. and nations such as Syria and Iran. Syria’s accusations would likely be echoed across the region.
Joshua Bark
