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How Soleimani's Killing Could Make a Stronger Iraq
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Michael Knights - As someone who has worked in Iraq with every U.S. administration since 2003, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and relief when Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraq's most senior militiaman, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, were killed, reflecting the friends and colleagues lost there to militia attacks. I know that this feeling was shared across the U.S. government policymaking, military and intelligence communities dealing with Iraq. In Iraq, Soleimani picked the prime minister and made sure he did not get in the way while Muhandis ran anything that mattered in the country. On Sunday, Iraq's Parliament agreed in principle that the presence of U.S. combat forces should be ended, although all Kurdish MPs and most Sunnis were absent. Yet many Iraqis still want a new era of strategic cooperation with the U.S., including Iraqi moderates, military professionals, technocrats, and even a good proportion of Shiites. Everyone remembers what happened after the sudden, complete removal of foreign forces in 2011, and few outside the Iran-backed militias are keen to repeat the episode, which opened the floodgates for a revival of the Islamic State and the near-collapse of Iraq. They also don't want Iran to have unfettered influence in Iraq. The writer is a senior fellow of The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf states.