Winning the Peace in IraqSeptember/October 2019 171
country to become a pawn o Iran. Yet the United States must make
sure that the sovereignty card is played against Tehran and not against
Washington. Issuing public demands to Baghdad is counterproduc-
tive—pressure must be exerted behind closed doors, and savvy coali-
tions must be built to empower Iraqis to limit Iranian encroachment.
That said, Iran is and will remain one o Iraq’s major trading partners,
its primary source o tourism revenue, and a much larger and more
powerful country forever on its borders. Only a web o countervailing
inÇuence from the United States, Europe, and the Arab world will
secure Iraqi sovereignty.
The United States has all the tools to help Iraq succeed, and it is
manifestly in Washington’s interest to do so. A strong, independent,
and democratic Iraq will be a boon to U.S. interests in the Middle
East. As the largest Shiite-majority Arab country, Iraq can serve as a
bridge between the region’s Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Persians.
As a neighbor and former rival o Iran, Iraq can also act as a brake on
Tehran’s regional ambitions—provided that it is in a position to look
after its own security needs.
A more consolidated Iraqi democracy will also make fewer demands
on the United States. Iraq has the ¿fth-largest oil reserves in the
world, which should provide it with the resources to care for its own
people. The country is also, ¿nally, beginning to restore diplomatic
and commercial ties with the Gul states, which had withered after
Saddam’s invasion o Kuwait in 1990. Saudi Arabia has reopened its
embassy in Baghdad, resumed commercial airline service to Iraq, pro-
vided the country with reconstruction aid, and welcomed Abdul-
Mahdi and Sadr to Riyadh. In April, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion
in investment to Iraq, and it has oered to sell Baghdad electricity at
a discount to help wean the country o Iranian energy.
The basic architecture for a mutually bene¿cial U.S.-Iraqi relation-
ship already exists. After the 2007 U.S. troop surge, U.S. Ambassador
Ryan Crocker worked with Salih, who was then deputy prime minis-
ter, and Salih’s fellow Kurd, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, to de-
velop the Strategic Framework Agreement, which called on Washington
and Baghdad to deepen their relationship from a security partnership
to one spanning cultural, economic, educational, and scienti¿c ties.
Thus far, the United States has focused on winning contracts for U.S.
businesses and gaining more visas as implicit preconditions for other
forms o engagement. This is a mistake. Instead, the United States