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SULAYMANIYAH, IraqWhat does the end of American leadership in the Middle East look like?

Theres no better place to find out these days than Iraqi Kurdistan, which is, by any measure, one of the most pro-American places in the world.

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Kurdistan wouldnt exist in anything like its current form if not for the intervention of successive American presidents going back to George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who insisted on protecting the enclave from Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush may be disdained as an occupier elsewhere in Iraq, but he is remembered here as a liberator and a hero for toppling Hussein, as nearly everyone with whom I spoke here reminds me. And just a couple hours away, in the raging battle to retake the strategic city of Mosul from the terrors of the Islamic State, the fight wouldnt be possible without assistance from hundreds of American advisers on the ground and pilots in the air.

So its no accident that when Barham Salih, the polished and urbane pol who previously served as deputy prime minister of Iraq and prime minister of the Kurdish regional republic, gathers the Iraqi political class every year for a Western-style conference on their troubled countrys future, he invites them to the American University he helped found in Sulaymaniyah.

But this year America was scarcely in evidence at Salihs annual forum, except as a subject of nervous speculation and Trump White House Kremlinology. President Trump has talked a lot about defeating the Islamic State but done virtually nothing to address Iraq itself, except to lump it in with other suspect states in a temporary travel ban, a move he ultimately reversed amid protests from his own commanders, who objected to treating an ally with the back of the hand.

So while Iraqs political class wonders what, if anything, Trump now has in mind for their unsettled nation, they are preparing for a coming crisis that may be every bit as serious as the military battle against the Islamic State they finally look to be on the verge of winning.

Because 14 years after Bushs invasion, Iraqs futureand that of independence-aspiring Kurdistan along with itis very much in doubt. The rise of the Islamic State triggered not only a new civil war and refugee catastrophe but also a spiraling economic crisis at just the moment when the oil prices upon which Iraq depends for virtually its entire government budget utterly cratered. And this all comes as America, once the regions indispensable player, has been increasingly ceding the field to neighboring powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkeynot to mention a resurgent Russia.

Will Iraq make it through?

The answer, I heard in dozens of conversations over the last week here, was strikingly uncertain, with dire scenarios ranging from the long-feared splintering of the state to a new outbreak of warlordism and civil war to the return of a Saddam-like dictator. Even self-proclaimed optimists for the future of Iraqi democracy say they have a hard time envisioning how the country manages to pull it off, and the countrys leader, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, is viewed as well-intentioned but weak, a creature of the Baghdad Green Zone who has few tools at his disposal to broker a lasting deal.

To me, this is the collapse of the American order that began in 2003, Salih tells me on the sidelines of his forum. And a continuation of the collapse of the European order of the 1920s.

We are fighting a war of survival, says Qubad Talabani, the 39-year-old heir apparent to one of the main Kurdish political parties, whose father Jalal Talabani was Iraqs post-invasion president from 2005 to 2014 and who himself is a smooth Washington veteran now serving as deputy prime minister of Kurdistan.

Can the United States still help under President Trump? Will it, with a new leader whose foreign policy is premised on the idea of America First, who has said the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake and that we should have just taken the countrys oil and gotten the hell out?

The world looks at America, Talabani tells me in an interview for The Global Politico, our podcast on world affairs. And when America disengages, usually the world also disengages.

***

Sulyamaniyah looks pretty good for a place that even its own leaders say is on the verge of collapse. The central market is bustling, filled with bootleg iPhones and cheap Chinese goods and giant local radishes. The mountains that encircle the town still have snow on their peaks, and the citys sunsets are famously beautiful; in another political universe, tourism would be one of Sulaymaniyahs bumper crops.

But Mosul -- and the brutal, months-long battle to retake itis only 140 miles up the road, and the fight against the Islamic State has been the overriding political imperative for virtually all of Iraqs faction-ridden politicians since the militant jihadists stormed through the country two and a half years ago, at one point even seeming to threaten Baghdad. In Kurdistan, that meant a region overwhelmed by some 1.8 million refugeesboth internally displaced Iraqis and Syrians running from ISIS next dooreven as the central government in Baghdad essentially went bust, stopping almost entirely all salary and other payments. Political infighting, long a tradition here, spiraled out of control as conditions worsened; Kurdistans president, Masoud Barzani, has remained in office two years past the expiration of his term with no sign of new elections on the horizon and the speaker of the local parliament has been blocked by Barzani from even going to the regional capital of Erbil.

We have prevented the collapse of the government here, says Talabani. But were not out of the woods yet.

We both had listened earlier that day as Prime Minister Abadi gave an unusually direct speech to the forum, delivered without notes and apparently straight from the heart, about the dream of a united Iraq, one in which Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds, Christians and Yazidis, would build on the military partnership theyd forged to challenge ISIS and turn it into a new and more viable version of the Iraqi state than the weak, corruption-plagued, overtly sectarian one that almost fell apart when the Islamic State arose.

This is not imagination, Abadi said. We are closer to the reality.

And it is a reality that looks far better than just a couple years earlier, the prime minister reminded the audience, when the talk was all about how Iraq will not return back to what it has been.

Still, Iraq is no country for optimists, and Abadis warning, while sugarcoated, was clear in the heart of Kurdistan, a region that aspires to an independence that could well hasten the end of the state itself: work together and patch Iraq back up, or encourage a new dictatorship, as Abadi put it, in a place where longing for a strongman is an increasingly prevalent political fear.

Not long before Abadis address, Talabani had said publicly that Iraq has failed as a state. It didnt sound like he and other Kurdish politicians expected the cooperation and modest goodwill generated by the largely successful military campaign against ISIS to outlive the war. Was that right, I asked him? Well, he said, the military alliance is an easier one for the Kurds than the political mess that is sure to follow:

We cannot just look at defeating ISIS on the battlefield, because ISIS is not just a security threat; ISIS is a political threat, its an ideological threat, its a global threat. So if we think that just by liberating Mosul, we have eradicated ISIS from Iraq, that is a fallacy. Much more needs to be done on the political and economic levels for us to feel safe that ISIS 3.0 will not return and cause havoc in this country.

***

If theres one thing that the Iraqi politicians who came to Sulaymaniyah this week seem to agree on, its that figuring out Iraq after ISIS will be a lot harder without American involvement. The Kurds, itching for independence, have put off a referendum on their future while the fighting still ragesbut will resume their push for political autonomy as soon as the shooting stops. Many worry that revenge killings will proliferate in areas formerly held by the Islamic State and that Sunni areas where ISIS flourished will not have leaders who can or will reintegrate them with the Iraqi state. And Abadi, who faces reelection next year, has much to worry about from within his own Shiite political partyas well as from the former prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, widely seen as still waiting in the wings for Abadi to stumble.

With so much complexity swirling about, theres one factor even more unpredictable than many of Iraqs by-now-familiar dysfunctions: What about the Americans? If Trump has a political vision for Iraq, he has kept it well hidden, and his secretary of state has been a cipher, though Trump has appointed several generals to his team, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who served in Iraq and know its challenges well.

But if anything, I found that many Iraqis are surprisingly pro-Trumpdespite his anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail, his talk of taking Iraqs oil and even his initial inclusion of Iraq on his temporary immigration ban.

The answer has much to do with Trumps all-too-familiar political styleand perhaps even more to do with Barack Obama.

Listen to Isa Mohamed, a university student here and aspiring novelist from Baghdad. . Hes convinced that not even a decade and a half after the fall of Saddam, Iraqis are so sick of the chaos they now talk of restoring a strongman to power.

And that also makes them open to Trump and his muscular pronouncements about defeating the Islamic State. President Trump is an ideal concept for Middle Easterners in general, and Iraqis in particular, because he fits the loud, strong, one who will say it as it is, Isa says. To them, they can see Trump is doing something, instead of what we saw with Obama.

Talabani and other politicians, if not as blunt, are similarly critical of Obamas policies toward Iraq Obama-bashing, as one veteran observer of the region put it to me this week, is the one thing that unites the Middle East right now from Iran to Israel. I didnt meet anyone who agreed with Trumps campaign-trail insistence that Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton created the Islamic State by pulling out of IraqISIS, Talabani told me, was born out of the failure of Iraqi politicsbut there remain many hard feelings about Obamas decision to pull out nonetheless.

In that sense, Trumps version of America First might not be such a break with the American pullback the region has already seenand it might even be better. After all, Abadi has now become the first Arab leader officially invited for a Trump White House visit; hell come to Washington later this month.

President Obama, when he came into office, his mandate was to get out of Iraq, which you could say is an America first strategy, Talabani notes. But we saw that getting out of Iraq didnt help Iraq. It didnt help the United States in the Middle East. It didnt help peace and prosperity here. So were hopeful that America First doesnt mean disengagement.

Hopeful, yes. But Iraqis have learned not to let themselves feel much more than that.

Susan B. Glasser is POLITICOs chief international affairs columnist. Her new podcast, The Global Politico, comes out Mondays. Subscribe here. Follow her on Twitter @sbg1.

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Can Iraq Survive Trump? - Politico

A ceremony unveiling a monument dedicated to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was unveiled by the Queen a few days ago. She paid tribute to the military who supposedly helped to bring "peace and stability" to the two war-torn countries. On one side of the memorial, several British soldiers are lined up, their faces determined and brave, while on the other side, we see an etching of generic brown women, children and menan obvious afterthought receiving boxes with the Union Jack from soldiers with joy.

As a woman of Afghan descent born in Britain, I feel little joy about the UKs campaigns in the Middle East, in particular Afghanistan and Isis-occupied Iraq. Afghanistan is the invisible war: a plague that was born out of western-funded mujahedeen fighting against Soviet Russia, smothered with a reluctance to accept any blame. Where exactly is the joy and the liberation in that?

David Cameron appears to mouth sentence including 'manifesto' and 'stupid' at Iraq memorial service

In attendance at the unveiling of the monument were former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron, and, crucially, Tony Blair, whose misguided decisions led to thousands of deaths for rewards yet to manifest. Throughout my life, I have been followed by the idea that my people are terrorists as Islamophobia was unleashed in the West during these wars.

Im truly saddened that as a nation, Afghanistan has seen turmoil at the hands of the West for the last 30 to 40 years. Now this memorial only serves to celebrate the individuals who, to my mind, destroyed a beautiful country with a rich, illustrious history.

What's perhaps the most offensive about these images are that they nakedly represent propaganda. In reality, Afghan and Iraqi people have been the sole perpetrators of keeping up Afghan spirits. It's thanks to Afghan revolutionaries like Roya Mahboob, who founded Digital Citizens Fund, a series of tech colleges for women and girls to help boost entrepreneurship. Or Laila Haidari, whose drug rehabilitation centres, Mother Camp, aim to curb the horrors of opioid addiction.

In Iraq, Women's Defence Units are fighting Isis and Zekra Alwach was voted into office as Baghdads first female mayor. Afghans and Iraqis have no ulterior motive when helping their own, whereas westerners all too often do so for power, wealth, and control over resources.

As a piece of British history, the memorial plays into the idea of white soldiers "saving" Afghan and Iraqi civilians, when all they've done is cause countless casualties and deaths, ruining the respective countries to add to the British governments hefty list of invasions. Where is this "freedom" we and the people of the respective countries were promised? Is it Isis occupying Iraq? The increase of Islamophobic attacks worldwide? Or is it the likelihood that anyone who "looks" Muslim will be heavily searched an airport?

It feels like this memorial serves as a justification for the actions taken by Blair and his peers. War prevails because Britain prevails as a result. It was Thatchers victory in the Falkland Islands that gave her popularity a much needed boost, after all. But unlike the Falklands, these wars have been the longest in British history, which only goes to show that these pursuits have simply been a failure.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has anything to show for it. Weapons of mass destruction turned out to be little more than a myth and Osama bin Laden wasnt even found in Afghanistan. So, what is it we're celebrating with the memorial besides poor judgment from white people and the genocide of brown people? British imperialism and the pursuit of power.

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The British Iraq and Afghanistan war memorial celebrates those who destroyed my country - The Independent

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2017 Indigenous Iraqi and Syrian forces have made tremendous progress taking the fight to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and Americans should be very proud of the role played in the effort by a small number of U.S. troops, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said during an interview.

When Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford took over as chairman in October 2015, ISIS had taken vast portions of Iraq and Syria and sought to establish a caliphate. The counter-ISIS strategy he inherited sought to train local forces to combat the terror organization.

This meant small numbers of American and coalition troops would work with Iraqi and vetted Syrian forces. Coalition air assets, special operators and artillery units would support the campaign.

The Iraqis have to be very proud of their forces, Dunford said. But I think we have to be very proud of the coalition, and what U.S. forces have accomplished.

Iraqi forces pushed back ISIS in Ramadi and Beiji and are now pushing into western Mosul -- the largest city taken by ISIS. The strategy is working, the chairman said, and its because young American service members are doing the hard work every day to make it happen.

If you think of the relatively small number of Americans that had deployed to Iraq over the past 18 to 24 months, he said, if you think about how hard they had to work in conjunction with Iraqi security forces to make sure we learned the lessons from Ramadi and Anbar province and applied those lessons with the right capabilities in Mosul; Ill just tell you I am proud of the force that has done that.

The Task Ahead

There still remains much to do in Iraq, the general said, and he is taking nothing for granted.

In Syria, indigenous forces are isolating Raqqa and pushing back well dug-in ISIS forces on all fronts. There, the progress has been dependent on an even smaller number of Americans who worked to recruit, train and strengthen counter-ISIS forces.

We sent those guys into an incredibly complex environment, Dunford said. We told them to go in collect intelligence, develop relationships, vet people and identify people willing to take the fight to the enemy, train those people, equip those people, support those people, and win.

And those special operations forces and U.S. Air Force personnel did it -- day after day, little by little, and under extreme circumstances, the chairman said.

The fact that we are now talking about divergent political challenges, the fact that we are now addressing questions of what happens after Mosul or Raqqa, we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that it is a reflection of the members of the joint force that have actually enabled the indigenous force to take the fight to the enemy, Dunford said. Now we have the political opportunities that we didnt have two years ago to establish the framework for long-term peace and stability, and we owe it to them.

(Follow Jim Garamone on Twitter: @GaramoneDoDNews)

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Dunford: Americans Should Be Proud of Role US Troops Play in Iraq, Syria - Department of Defense

Charles Lawson, 27, a Naples High graduate, Iraq War vet and University of Miami graduate, is a franchisee of a new eco-friendly carpet cleaning business called Oxi Fresh in Naples. Lawson pitched his product at the fifth annual event hosted by the Naples Humane Society at Mercato on Sunday, March 26, 2017, in North Naples.(Photo: Luke Franke/Naples Daily News)Buy Photo

Charles Lawson has big plans, and they start with cleaning carpets.

Lawson, 27, a Naples High School graduate and an Iraq War veteran, plans to open Southwest Florida's first Oxi Fresh franchise in the coming weeks after months of preparation and even longer discovering his entrepreneurial impulses.

"I've been wanting to start this for a long time now," Lawson said. "I'm getting antsy. I want to start my career, you know."

Lawson acknowledges he wasn't that interested in school back at Naples High.

When he graduated in 2007, he joined the Air Force as a "way out," he said.

He went to basic training in San Antonioand then on to logistics and transportation training in Biloxi, Mississippi, and then back to San Antonio before landing at Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico.

He served seven months in 2010 and 2011 in Dohar, Qatar, during the Iraq War.

His unit's job was to ship everything from aircraft parts to bombs even a few military casualties to wherever they needed to go, a job he said was stressful.

"A lot of people were counting on us," Lawson said.

By 2014, Lawson had cut ties to the Air Forceafter a few years in the Air Force Reserve. He would travel one weekend a month to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa from Miami, where he was going to school. This time school was different, though.

Lawson loved college and the freedom, friendships and mental challenges that came with it, he said. He transferred from Miami-Dade Community College, where he got all As and one B,to the University of Miami with a 3.95 GPA.

After college, he went to work as a financial analyst fora telecommunications company in Boca Raton. It lasted 10 months. He said he didn't like the office grind.

"I couldn't see myself working in financial institutions," Lawson said. "It's not what I wanted in life."

That's when he started looking for businesses to buy. Oxi Fresh caught his eye, he said.

Charles Lawson, 27, a Naples High graduate, Iraq War vet and University of Miami graduate, is a franchisee of a new eco-friendly carpet cleaning business called Oxi Fresh in Naples. Lawson had a booth at the fifth annual Woofstock event hosted by the Naples Humane Society at Mercato on Sunday, March 26, 2017, in North Naples.(Photo: Luke Franke/Naples Daily News)

The company markets itself as an eco-friendly alternative to most carpet cleaning companies becauseits machinesuse less water and more naturalcleaners. He figured it could be a way to stand out from the rest of the carpet-cleaning crowd.

Lawson went to Denver for a weeklong training and came away impressed with the franchise support system behind Oxi Fresh, from tracking customer satisfaction to marketing options.

Oxi Fresh franchise developer Matt Kline, who has been working with Lawson to set up his business, said Lawson struck him as a go-getter and an easy choice to be awarded a franchise, in part because of his military service.

"As long as you put a path in front of military veterans, you don't have to worry about getting the effort out of them," Kline said.

Lawson has been no exception, despite challenges in getting a loan to startthe franchise because of his lack of credit history and business experience,Kline said.

Lawson is in the final stages of getting a Small Business Administration loan, a grueling process.

"I think most people in his position would have given up a long time ago," Kline said.

Instead, Lawson has soldiered on. He hascompany T-shirts on order. He hasbusiness cards and coupons printed. He hasa Nissanvan picked out, and he's been talking with a company to get it wrapped with the Oxi Freshlogo.

The plan is to do all the jobs himself for the first six monthsand then start hiring help so he can focus on growing his business. He wants to take over the Fort Myers-Cape Coral franchise area in a few years.

He plans to target pet owners at the Humane Society. He plans on knocking on doors of property managers and apartments to drum up business, emphasizing the quick-dry nature of the Oxi Fresh system.

By the time he's 35, Lawson said, he wants to branch out into other franchises, maybe opening a Chick-fil-A or a Jimmy Johns. He can rattle off the buy-in fees they charge and the percentage they take.

Somedayhe'd like to go back to school and get a master's in business administration, but he says he can always fall back on his finance degree if his franchise plan fails.

"I don't think it will, though," Lawson said.

Charles Lawson, 27, center, greets Dominique Colas and his Chihuahua Zora as well as other passers-by while representing his Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning franchise during the fifth annual Woofstock event hosted by the Naples Humane Society at Mercato on Sunday, March 26, 2017, in North Naples. The Naples High graduate and Iraq War veteran is a new franchise owner of the eco-friendly carpet cleaning business in Naples.(Photo: Luke Franke/Naples Daily News)

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Naples High grad, Iraq War vet ready to clean up - Naples Daily News

Iraq - In the midst of ongoing operations in Mosul, the Government of Japan is providing USD 6.7 million to IOM to support its humanitarian response to displacement in Iraq.

Over a one-year period, this contribution will support IOM to assist internally displaced Iraqis, as well as returnees and host community members.

The project will fund two components of the emergency response efforts: shelter support to maintain and upgrade emergency shelter sites and critical arrangements (unfinished schools and religious buildings, among others) to safely house new internally displaced persons (IDPs); and provision of emergency seasonal non-food items (NFI) to meet the immediate needs of families fleeing from conflict.

In areas retaken by the Iraqi government, the project will contribute to promoting community stabilization through several initiatives, including:

Providing 100 low-cost houses with infrastructure.

Implementing six community infrastructure rehabilitation projects (also called Quick Impact Projects), including the rehabilitation of schools and health centres, in response to the communities expressed needs.

Providing training to community members and law enforcement officials on community policing principles.

Carrying out a detailed assessment, through IOM Iraqs Displacement Tracking Matrix, on return movements to retaken areas to inform programmatic decision-making and benefit the wider humanitarian community.

IOM has identified the need for comprehensive community recovery packages targeting areas of return, and is committed to respond to the urgent needs of returnees. IOMs community stabilization initiatives respond to infrastructure damage in retaken areas with urgently needed rehabilitation projects. In addition, the project will continue supporting its successful eye care health activities for vulnerable communities.

In the previous round of the IOM Iraqs Japan-funded programme from May 2016 to February 2017, more than 5,500 displaced children received vision screenings, and more than 1,000 received full eye examinations and prescription glasses.

The contribution of the Government of Japan has enabled IOM to support thousands of displaced Iraqis with emergency assistance and livelihoods, said IOM Iraq Chief of Mission Thomas Lothar Weiss. We are pleased to continue this important partnership, in coordination with the Government of Iraq and humanitarian partners, to improve conditions for those who are still living in displacement as well as for those facing the challenge of returning home in retaken areas, he added.

Mr. Fumio Iwai, Ambassador of Japan to Iraq said, This shows Japans strong and faithful commitment, to addressing the IDP crisis in Iraq, as part of a new package of humanitarian, counter-terrorism and community stabilization in support of Iraq amounting to around 100m USD. He added Japan is determined to serve displaced Iraqi families and host communities respecting human dignity.

Tiba, a 7-year-old displaced girl from Mosul, who now lives in Erbil, said: I am very comfortable with the glasses. I wanted the frame to be pink. I am happy now that I can read, write and watch TV with them. I thank Japan for the eyeglasses. My family is displaced now, but I hope we can return to Mosul one day.

Over three million Iraqis continue to be displaced across Iraq since January 2014. Due to Mosul military operations, which began in mid-October 2016, an additional 283,000 Iraqis have been displaced (cumulative); more than 215,000 are currently displaced; and more than 68,000 have returned home. More than 57,000 have been displaced from West Mosul in the past two weeks.

The latest DTM Emergency Tracking figures on displacement from Mosul operations are available at: http://iraqdtm.iom.int/EmergencyTracking.aspx

Please click to download the latest:

IOM Iraq DTM Mosul Operations - Factsheet (March 9):

http://iraqdtm.iom.int/Downloads/DTM%20Emergency%20Tracking/Mosul%20Cris...

IOM Iraq DTM Mosul Operations Data Snapshot (March 9): http://iomiraq.net/article/0/9-march-2017-mosul-displacement-snapshot

For further information please contact Hala Jaber at IOM Iraq, Tel. +964 751 740 1654, Email: hjaberbent@iom.int

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Japan Donates USD 6.7 Million to Aid Displaced Iraqis: IOM - ReliefWeb