Ambassador Doug Silliman on the Fate of Embassy Baghdad
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2020
⏱️ 50 minutes
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Summary
The past year has been a difficult one for the U.S. relationship with Iraq, a country that has increasingly found itself caught in the middle of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran and Iran's own efforts to strike back at the United States. Now, the relationship between the United States and Iraq appears to be reaching a new low, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reportedly threatened to close the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad unless the Iraqi government does more to thwart attacks by militias associated with Iran against U.S. personnel stationed there. But is the Trump administration really willing to take such a dramatic and seemingly self-defeating step? Or are there other factors at play? To find out, Scott R. Anderson sat down with former ambassador Doug Silliman who knows the situation in Baghdad like few others. They discussed the threat to close the embassy, the legacy of the Soleimani strike for the bilateral U.S.-Iraq relationship and what the future that relationship might look like if Secretary Pompeo makes good on his threat.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:33.9 | Putting an embassy exclusively in your bill is likely to even further push American strategic |
| 0:42.3 | interests in Iraq as defined since 2003 into the background and make our ability to help |
| 0:50.4 | Iraqis create a more sovereign independent democratic and prosperous country. |
| 0:57.5 | That's why we went into Iraq in the first place in 2003. |
| 1:01.6 | It may be now because of domestic politics that those goals are no longer important to |
| 1:06.5 | the American people. |
| 1:07.5 | And if that's the case, that might be the logical extension of withdrawing an embassy |
| 1:13.2 | to your bill and simply pulling relations with Iraq on the same level as relations with |
| 1:21.8 | other difficult but not enemy countries in other places in the world. |
| 1:26.8 | I'm Scott R. Anderson and this is the LawFair podcast for October 16, 2020. |
| 1:32.8 | The past year has been a difficult one for the US relationship with Iraq, a country that |
| 1:36.6 | has increasingly found itself caught in the middle of the Trump administration's maximum |
| 1:40.2 | pressure campaign against Iran and Iran's own efforts to strike back at the United |
| 1:44.4 | States. |
| 1:46.0 | Now the relationship between the United States and Iraq appears to be reaching a new |
| 1:49.0 | low. |
| 1:50.0 | A Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reportedly threatened to close the US embassy in Baghdad |
... |
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