Biden to host talks with Iraqi PM as Middle East tensions soar

President Joe Biden is set to host Iraq's leader Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al Sudani for a discussion on future US troop deployments in the war-torn country as well as economic, trade and energy issues.

The meeting will happen amid regional tensions taking a dangerous turn following Israel's deadly strike on an Iranian installation in Syria, which killed seven Iranian military officials in early April, prompting Tehran to carry out a retaliatory strike two weeks later on Saturday.

Biden and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin are both expected to address the US troop presence in meetings with al Sudani. “It is not the primary focus of the visit… but it is almost certainly going to come up,” one senior US official said last week.

The two countries have a delicate relationship due in part to Iran’s considerable sway in Iraq, where a coalition of Iran-backed groups brought al Sudani to power in October 2022.

The sharp rise in security fears has raised further questions about the viability of the two-decade American military presence in Iraq, through which portions of Iran's Saturday drone and missile attack on Israel flew or were launched from.

A US Patriot battery in Irbil, Iraq, knocked down at least one Iranian ballistic missile, according to American officials.

Talks on coalition's future

The US and Iraq began formal talks in January about ending the coalition created to help the Iraqi government fight Daesh-K, with some 2,000 US troops remaining in the country under an agreement with Baghdad. Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of those forces.

The US in recent months has urged Iraq to do more to prevent attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria that have further roiled the Middle East in the aftermath of October 7.

Iran's weekend attacks on Israel through Iraqi airspace have further underscored US concerns, although al Sudani had already left Baghdad and was en route to Washington when the drones and missiles were launched.

Financial tensions

The US has also sought to apply financial pressure over Baghdad’s relationship with Tehran, restricting Iraq’s access to its own dollars in an effort to stamp out money laundering said to benefit Iran and Syria.

Al Sudani started his term with promises to focus on economic development and fight corruption, but his government has faced economic difficulties, including a discrepancy in the official and market exchange rates between the Iraqi dinar and the US dollar.

The currency issues came in part as a result of a US tightening of the dollar supply to Iraq, as part of a crackdown on money laundering and smuggling of funds to Iran. The US has disallowed more than 20 Iraqi banks from dealing in dollars as part of the campaign.

The al Sudani government recently renewed Iraq’s contract to purchase natural gas from Iran for another five years, which could lead to American displeasure.

The Iraqi prime minister will return to Iraq and meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following his trip to Washington, which could finally lead to a solution to a long-running dispute over exports of oil from Kurdish areas of Iraq to Türkiye. Washington has sought to get the flow of oil to resume.