Mr. Ahmed Aliba, a researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said in a special commentary to the Arab Wall website, that US-Iraqi military relations have become a more strategic partnership following of the fourth round of strategic dialogue between Iraq and the US.

Aliba confirmed that, contrary to expectations of an American decision to withdraw from Iraq, similar to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fourth round of the strategic dialogue between Iraq and the United States has led to the strengthening of the strategic partnership between the two sides. According to the official statements released by the two parties in Washington, which hosted the last round of talks on July 23, 2021, the talks added the objective of achieving stability to their original declared aim of building a strategic partnership. Washington pledged to respect the sovereignty and laws of the State of Iraq, and to provide the resources needed to maintain its territorial integrity, in exchange for the Iraqi government’s pledge to protect American soldiers whose duties will change over the next five months. Aliba added that this outcome of Iraqi American talks represents a major tactical change in the nature of continued US-Iraqi military cooperation. In practice, it is expected that US military missions in Iraq are likely to continue in view of  Iraqi forces’ need for air support in the operations they sometimes carry out against ISIS.