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| US President Donald Trump |
By: Joe Gould
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration is rocking the relationship with Iraq, America's key ally in the fight against the Islamic State group.
As the US and Iraq prepare to take the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, the Iraqi parliament has passed a measure banning Americans from traveling to the country in response to Trump's ban on travel from Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries, The Associated Press reported.
“This decision by the U.S. is arbitrary,” Intisar Al-Jabbouri, a Sunni lawmaker from northern Iraq, told Time magazine. “The Iraqi government has the right to reciprocate.”
The Trump administration is facing political heat domestically over its order, which includes a 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and a 120-day suspension of the US refugee program.
The order has also reverberated among US allies in the Muslim world, where it should be found “pretty disturbing,” said Ryan Crocker, a former US ambassador to Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon and Afghanistan. That’s because the US signed a bilateral agreement with Iraq that calls for strategic cooperation at every level.
“They know we’re heavily involved in the fight to take Mosul, and they have to be asking themselves, if they’ll do this to the Iraqis, they’ll do it to us,” Crocker said.
The move raised concerns of both a violent backlash against US advisers and troops, who are in the Middle East for the counter-ISIS fight, and that ISIS could use a perceived Muslim immigration ban as a recruiting tool.
“The Iraqis are of course going nuts, just as they’re about to do the next phase against the Islamic State, and Islamic State social media is celebrating,” Crocker said.
Read the full story at DefenseNews