Both sides in the June 11 U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue showed flexibility with regard to each other’s forces in Iraq, including an important concession by the US regarding Iran-backed militias in Iraq, called the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Col. Myles B. Caggins, according to Rudaw, said: “The PMU and its organization is an Iraqi affair and has nothing to do with the international coalition.” He was speaking at an June 11 interview with Iraqi News Agency.
In turn, the PMU’s indicated a shift in their stance that U.S. troops must leave Iraq immediately, focusing on side issues, instead. Qais al-Khazali, head of Iran-aligned Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia, said, “The American administration should know that when it demands its military forces remain in Iraq, it will be governed by Iraqi law, because the Iraqi Parliament has previously refused and will refuse to give immunity to them.” Khazali is clearly no longer objecting to the US troops’ presence, but only opposing providing them with legal immunity, Rudaw noted.
These concessions by both sides are all the more remarkable given that the U.S. State Department, in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of Iranian Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani, designated Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq a foreign terrorist organization and al-Khazali as a specially designated global terrorist. [cjo]
