Monitoring Desk
BAGHDAD: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin landed in Iraq on Tuesday on an unannounced visit barely 2 weeks before the twentieth anniversary of the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
After arrival in Baghdad, Austin tweeted that he was there to reaffirm the US-Iraq strategic partnership as they move toward a more stable, secure, and sovereign Iraq.
His visit comes ahead of the 20 March anniversary of the ground invasion, which ushered in 2 decades of bloodshed that Iraq is only now starting to exit.
Iraq has welcomed a raft of foreign officials in the series, including United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and the Russian, Iranian, and Saudi foreign ministers.
Since US-led coalition forces toppled Saddam’s regime, Iraq’s Shiite majority has led the country under a confessional power-sharing system.
Baghdad maintains balance in ties with US, Iran
Successive governments have forged close relations with Iraq’s Shiite-led neighbor Iran, while Iraq also maintains ties with the United States, Iran’s arch-foe, in a difficult balancing act.
Both Washington and Tehran provided widespread support during Iraq’s fight against the Sunni extremists of ISIS, who overran western and northern Iraq swathes in 2014.
The militants were ousted from Iraqi soil in 2017 but retain sleeper cells in mountain and desert hideouts in Iraq and Syria.
Iraq announced the end of war operations by US-led coalition forces at the end of 2021, but some units remained on the soil to provide advice and training.
Austin’s visit comes after he held meetings in Jordan with King Abdullah II, a staunch US ally in the area.
