Diplomatic relations between Iraq and the United States began when the U.S. first recognized Iraq on January 9, 1930, with the signing of the Anglo-American-Iraqi Convention in London by Charles G. Dawes, U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. The historiography of Iraq—United States relations prior to the 1980s is considered relatively underdeveloped, with the first in-depth academic studies being published in the 2010s. Today, the United States and Iraq both consider themselves as strategic partners, given the American political and military involvement after the invasion of Iraq and their mutual, deep-rooted relationship that followed. The United States provides the Iraqi security forces hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid and training annually as well as uses its military bases.
In January 2020, Iraq voted to ask the U.S. and its coalition members to withdraw all of their troops from the country after the assassinations of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani (the second most powerful figure in Iran) and PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (one of Iraq's most powerful men). Following the vote, U.S. president Donald Trump initially refused to withdraw from Iraq, but began withdrawing forces in March 2020. On 26 July 2021, U.S. president Joe Biden announced that the American combat mission in Iraq would conclude by the end of 2021 and the remaining U.S. troops in the country would shift to an advisory role.
History
Ottoman Empire American commercial interaction with the Ottoman Empire (which included the area that later became modern Iraq) began in the late 18th century. In 1831, Chargé d'Affaires David Porter became the first American diplomat in the Ottoman Empire, at the capital city of Constantinople. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the United States supported Great Britain's administration of Iraq as a mandate, but insisted that it be groomed for independence, rather than remain a colony. U.S. first became involved in Iraq in the 1920s as part of an effort to secure a role for American companies in Iraq's emerging oil industry. As part of the 1928 Red Line Agreement, UK, US, France and the Netherlands effectively agreed to share out Iraq's oil, with American oil companies gaining a 23.75 percent ownership share of the Iraq Petroleum Company.
U.S. recognizes Iraq
The U.S. recognized Iraq on January 9, 1930, when Charles G. Dawes, U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, signed the Anglo-American-Iraqi Convention in London. According to the preamble of the convention, "the United States of America recognizes Iraq as an independent State." In this treaty, the U.S. also acknowledged that "special relations" existed between the U.K. and Iraq because the latter was a mandate under British protection according to the Treaty of Versailles. In 1932, Iraq terminated its mandate status. Diplomatic relations and the American Legation in Iraq were established on March 30, 1931, when Alexander K. Sloan (then serving as Consul in Iraq) was appointed Chargé d'Affaires of the American Legation at Baghdad. In early 1941, the United States, not yet engaged in the war and only peripherally involved in the Middle East, had not developed a clear and coherent policy toward Iraq. Nevertheless, the U.S. played a significant role in the events leading to the overthrow of Rashid Ali, the Iraqi prime minister (1933, 1940–41) as the British saw him as an Arab nationalist, and preferred Iraq to be ruled by a more 'pro-British' leader. The U.S. upgraded its diplomatic representation in Iraq from a Legation to an Embassy on December 28, 1946.
Arab Union On May 28, 1958, the U.S. recognized the Arab Union that formed between Iraq and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. U.S. recognition of the new state was accorded in an exchange of notes between the American Embassy at Baghdad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Arab Union. In announcing U.S. recognition, the Department of State noted that the Arab Union's constitution stipulated that "external affairs will remain as they are at the present time" with the two Kingdoms that had joined to form the new state. Consequently, formal diplomatic relations were not established between the U.S. and the Arab Union, and diplomatic relations continued uninterrupted between the U.S. and Iraq, and the U.S. and Jordan.
Relations with Qasim's government, 1958–1963
Relations between the U.S. and Iraq became strained following the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14, 1958, which resulted in the declaration of a republican government led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim. Concerned about the influence of Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) members in Qasim's administration, and hoping to prevent "Ba'athist or Communist exploitation of the situation," President Dwight D. Eisenhower had established a Special Committee on Iraq (SCI) in April 1959 to monitor events and propose various contingencies for preventing a communist takeover of the country. cf. Qasim undertook numerous repressive measures against the communists throughout 1960, and this—combined with the John F. Kennedy administration's belief that Iraq was not important to the broader Cold War—resulted in the disestablishment of the SCI within days of Kennedy's inauguration as president. However, subsequent events would return Iraq to the attention of American officials.
On June 25, 1961, Qasim mobilized troops along the Iraq–Kuwait border, declaring the latter nation "an indivisible part of Iraq" and causing a short-lived "Kuwait Crisis." The U.K.—which had just granted Kuwait independence on June 19 and whose economy was heavily dependent on Kuwaiti oil supplies—responded on July 1 by dispatching 5,000 troops to the country to deter any Iraqi invasion. At the same time, Kennedy briefly dispatched a U.S. Navy task force to Bahrain, and the U.K. (at the urging of the Kennedy administration) brought the dispute to United Nations Security Council, where the proposed resolution was vetoed by the Soviet Union. The situation was finally resolved in October, when the British troops were withdrawn and replaced by a 4,000-strong Arab League force. The Kennedy administration's initially "low-key" response to the stand-off was motivated by the desire to project an image of the U.S. as "a progressive anti-colonial power trying to work productively with Arab nationalism" as well as the preference of U.S. officials to defer to the U.K. on issues related to the Persian Gulf.
Following Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani's 1958 return to Iraq from exile in the Soviet Union, Qasim had promised to permit autonomous rule in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but by 1961 Qasim had made no progress towards achieving this goal. In July 1961, following months of violence between feuding Kurdish tribes, Barzani returned to northern Iraq and began retaking territory from his Kurdish rivals. Although Qasim's government did not respond to the escalating violence, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) sent Qasim a list of demands in August, which included the withdrawal of Iraqi government troops from Kurdish territory and greater political freedom. For the next month, U.S. officials in Iran and Iraq predicted that a war was imminent. Faced with the loss of northern Iraq after non-Barzani Kurds seized control of a key road leading to the Iran–Iraq border in early September and ambushed and massacred Iraqi troops on September 10 and September 12, Qasim finally ordered the systematic bombing of Kurdish villages on September 14, which caused Barzani to join the rebellion on September 19. As part of a strategy devised by Alexander Shelepin in July 1961 to distract the U.S. and its allies from the Soviet Union's aggressive posture in Berlin, the Soviet KGB revived its connections with Barzani and encouraged him to revolt, although Barzani had no intention to act as their proxy. By March 1962, Barzani's forces were in firm control of Iraqi Kurdistan, although Barzani refrained from taking major cities out of fear that the Iraqi government would launch reprisals against civilians. The U.S. refused Kurdish requests for assistance, but Qasim nevertheless castigated the Kurds as "American stooges" while absolving the Soviets of any responsibility for the unrest. cf.
In December 1961, Qasim's government passed Public Law 80, which restricted the British- and American-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)'s concessionary holding to those areas in which oil was actually being produced, effectively expropriating 99.5% of the IPC concession. U.S. officials were alarmed by the expropriation as well as the recent Soviet veto of an Egyptian-sponsored UN resolution requesting the admittance of Kuwait as a UN member state, which they believed to be connected. Senior National Security Council (NSC) adviser Robert Komer worried that if the IPC ceased production in response, Qasim might "grab Kuwait" (thus achieving a "stranglehold" on Middle Eastern oil production) or "throw himself into Russian arms." At the same time, Komer made note of widespread rumors that a nationalist coup against Qasim could be imminent, and had the potential to "get Iraq back on [a] more neutral keel." Following Komer's advice, on December 30 Kennedy's National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy sent the president a cable from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Jernegan, which argued that the U.S. was "in grave danger [of] being drawn into [a] costly and politically disastrous situation over Kuwait." Bundy also requested Kennedy's permission to "press State" to consider measures to resolve the situation with Iraq, adding that cooperation with the British was desirable "if possible, but our own interests, oil and other, are very directly involved."