العراق بين مفترقين: القرار يُصنع خارج الحدود
لا أحد في بغداد ينام حقًا. فحتى حين تهدأ الضوضاء في الشوارع، ويُطفأ ضوء آخر مكتب حكومي، يبقى القلق مستيقظًا. وبينما يبدو المشهد السياسي العراقي ساكنًا على السطح، تغلي تحته براكين من الاحتمالات، ليس أولها استمرار التواجد الأمريكي، وليس آخرها خشية الدولة من عقوبات لا تأتي بصيغة تهديد، بل تُفرض كأنها قَدَر سياسي لا مفر منه.
Since the fall of Saddam’s regime until the moment of writing this article, the relationship between Baghdad and Washington has been a long story of fear and dependence. The American forces officially withdrew from Iraq in 2011, but they returned three years later, not by a decision from the White House, but by a desperate request from an Iraq that was disintegrating under the blows of ISIS, and searching for a lifeline in its overflowing sea.
But the same lifeline has turned into a noose that holds Iraq’s decision-making process, unable to escape, unable to breathe. Today, Washington does not talk about withdrawal, not because it fears the return to square one, but because it realizes that Iraq is now the starting point for all new maps of the region. The American presence, as Ahmed Al-Sharifi says, "is a very likely option", or even a choice, when state authority turns into a tool, fear of the unknown turns into a political creed, and national interest turns into a delayed file to be notified again. The question is no longer "Will America withdraw?" but "Can Iraq live without it?" and the answer is no, or at least not now, or with this political class that fears sanctions more than it occupies the decision.
The delayed withdrawal… or the stay by Iraqi request?
In a time when the weight of state authority is measured by the gold of political leverage, the "American withdrawal" from Iraq is not a viable option, even if it has been raised in some rhetorical speeches. The field says something else, it says that the Americans are staying, and the Iraqi state – with its wobbly structure – no longer has the ability… to stay in Iraq, which is no longer a strategic project, but an additional burden on its worn-out body.
Iraq is at a crossroads… and the decision is being made outside the borders
Iraq, that country which used to make its decisions under the shadow of monarchs and imperialist empires, has become today a country that awaits its fate on the edge of a foreign phone or a defense ministry report that knows geography no more than it knows interests. The American presence in it is no longer just a security or military necessity, but has turned into a existential condition, revealing the fragility of the political structure, and exposing the romantic notions of "national independence". Iraq, as it seems, cannot stay with them, nor does it have the tools to stay without them, as if it is floating in a gray area controlled by everyone, except itself.
In this fatal contradiction, the Iraqi state becomes like a shipwrecked ship drifting in a raging sea, without anchor, without a return to the shore. Every attempt to withdraw American forces means destabilizing the fragile balance, and every attempt to stay means sinking into a mire of unending controversy.
Washington knows this reality, and it plays the game with precise calculations: no complete withdrawal, no long-term commitment… just enough to deter enemies and exert control. But Baghdad, forever stuck in the middle, looks at a worn-out Tehran, and finds no ally, looks at a cautious Washington, and finds no partner, and looks at the streets, and finds no answer.
The American stay has not been announced, but it is being implemented daily, silently, between political fear of sanctions, Iranian reluctance to support, and total inability to imagine an Iraq without a US shadow above its land, from the parliament to the operations room.
In short, the American decision has not been made, but the Iraqi decision has been made long ago… "It is not in our hands".
