Given its huge oil and gas reserves, strategically critical location in the heart of the Middle East, and its initial welcoming of the U.S. after the fall of President Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has long been at the top of Washington’s list of countries in the region with which it wants a deeper working relationship. In many ways, the U.S.’s end of combat mission in the country on 31 December 2021 was regarding by the White House as a temporary tactical retreat, before a new diplomacy-led relationship could be forged. Washington’s…
