HP:

Trump’s exclusion of Iraq from his enumeration of Iranian violations in the Arab world and the IRGC roles there, in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, has interesting implications. Iraq seems to occupy a special position for President Trump.

The situation in Iraq today indicates the presence of a secret thread not only in Kurdistan but also across the rest of Iraq, where Abadi’s ties to Iran and the PMF overlap with his relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Trump administration.

There is something curious about the Trump administration steering clear of criticizing Abadi’s policies, to the extent of ignoring to place the PMF, which are backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, within Iran’s violations. That despite the fact that Qassem Soleimani continues to publicly tour all parts of Iraq.

According to senior figures in the Trump administration, the Treasury Department will trim the wings of the IRGC and its supporters through expanded sanctions based on its support for terrorism, and this will claw back some of what Obama had conceded as a byproduct of the nuclear agreement. Obama had accepted to unlock Iranian assets in advance of the implementation of the deal even though he knew the IRGC would be the key beneficiary of the windfall, and agreed to suspend UN resolutions prohibiting Iran from sending troops or proxies outside its borders.

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