Obama, Iraqi PM to discuss aid to fight Islamic State

Islamic Extremism

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, right, holds a new conference before leaving to the United States at Baghdad airport, Iraq, Monday, April 13, 2015. The prime minister is making an in-person appeal to President Barack Obama for more help in defeating the Islamic State militants, hoping recent gains in the fight fueled by U.S. airstrikes will encourage more investment from a war-weary United States. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and President Barack Obama will discuss the fight against Islamic State on Tuesday at a White House meeting likely to be dominated by Iraqi requests for U.S. arms and tension over Iran’s role on the battlefield.

In his first U.S. trip since becoming prime minister, Abadi is expected to seek billions of dollars in drones and other U.S. weapons to combat Islamic State, which seized much of northern and central Iraq last year.

Obama’s administration, which welcomed Abadi’s ascension after a tricky relationship with former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, may not agree to all of the requests.

Nonetheless, the high-profile meeting in the Oval Office is meant to convey a U.S. stamp of approval for a leader who has sought to be more inclusive than his predecessor in governing Iraq.

Obama, who came to power on the back of a promise to end the war in Iraq, is restricted by public aversion to U.S. entanglement in another regional conflict and congressional constraints on his budget authority.

“The U.S. is not going to be willing to step up in terms of major military support. It’s unclear that the U.S. can budget for major aid,” said Anthony Cordesman, foreign policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Concern over Iran’s role in the fight against Islamic State may also feature in the Obama-Abadi talks. Iran-backed Shi’ite militias have played a major role in battling the group, an al Qaeda offshoot that emerged from the chaos in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

A senior U.S. general told Congress last month that the United States conditioned its entry into Iraq’s battle to retake Tikrit from Islamic State on the withdrawal of the Shi’ite militias from the clearing operation.

Report by Reuters.