Lobbying 2014: Podesta plays matchmaker for estranged US, Iraq
The United States and Iraq find themselves in intensive couples counseling as they try to save a failing marriage of convenience that could hold the key to defeating the biggest terrorist threat since al-Qaeda.
The United States and Iraq both hoped they’d be seeing a lot less of each other when the last American troops left the country in 2011.
Instead, they find themselves in intensive couples counseling as they try to save a failing marriage of convenience that could hold the key to defeating the biggest terrorist threat since al-Qaeda.
With Sunni militants threatening to tear the country apart, Baghdad turned to Democratic super-lobbyist Tony Podesta early last year to encourage the US government to get back in the fight. It has been a tough sell for the administration of President Barack Obama, who had boasted of pulling the United States out of Iraq, but rapid gains by the Islamic State group (IS) over the past few weeks have forced a re-evaluation.
Obama vowed in a June 19 speech announcing the first steps of America’s latest intervention, “Going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action, if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it.”
