AFP, Baghdad :
It posted tens of thousands of troops in Iraq, huddled with its leaders and helped craft its laws-but with the country swamped by deadly protests, Washington is staying out of the fray.
Its apparent absence during a key turning point in Iraq lays bare how much its interests and influence have waned since the 2003 US-led invasion that opened the door to fellow Shiite-majority neighbour Iran.
“The (US-Iraq) gulf has never been so big, and keeps getting bigger,” a senior Iraqi official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
After the invasion, the US effectively dismantled and rebuilt the Iraqi state, ushering in a new class of political elites with whom it crafted close personal links.
It trained a new military, deploying more than 170,000 troops to Iraq at its peak before withdrawing in 2011.
Since then, American soldiers helped Iraq defeat jihadists and US officials conferred closely with their counterparts on the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, the 2018 parliamentary vote and the ensuing cabinet formation.
Now, protesters across Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south are demanding an overhaul of the US-crafted system, but the US has remained comparatively restrained.
It posted tens of thousands of troops in Iraq, huddled with its leaders and helped craft its laws-but with the country swamped by deadly protests, Washington is staying out of the fray.
Its apparent absence during a key turning point in Iraq lays bare how much its interests and influence have waned since the 2003 US-led invasion that opened the door to fellow Shiite-majority neighbour Iran.
“The (US-Iraq) gulf has never been so big, and keeps getting bigger,” a senior Iraqi official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
After the invasion, the US effectively dismantled and rebuilt the Iraqi state, ushering in a new class of political elites with whom it crafted close personal links.
It trained a new military, deploying more than 170,000 troops to Iraq at its peak before withdrawing in 2011.
Since then, American soldiers helped Iraq defeat jihadists and US officials conferred closely with their counterparts on the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, the 2018 parliamentary vote and the ensuing cabinet formation.
Now, protesters across Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south are demanding an overhaul of the US-crafted system, but the US has remained comparatively restrained.
