Welcome to the stream. The killing of an iranian Major General has put the u. S. And iran on the brink of war but iraq is the battlefield so what lies ahead for a country over the struggling with a string of domestic problems Central Falls for todays show through twitter and you could be it. Irans targeting of 2 Iraqi Military bases hosting u. S. Troops has put the world on edge with fears that irans revenge attacks the u. S. Killing of its most important military leader who would escalate but its a rock thats in the firing line and it already has enough problems thousands of people across iraq have borne seem solemn ali and an Iraqi Militia commander killed in a u. S. Drone on tack on friday iraqi shia parliamentarians have foreign troops to leave iraq a call the u. S. Has rebuffed but iraqs politicians are still under pressure at home as demonstrators continue their push for Major Political and economic reform for more were joined from the northern iraqi city of erbil by he were awesome and hes a journalist and analyst also on the phone in baghdad we have ayman he has been part of the protests seeking government reform since october and we are disguising his identity for his safety and joining us right here in the studio in washington Hillary Mann Leverett she is the c e o of strategy thats a Political RiskConsulting Firm and has served on the White House NationalSecurity Council under president s clinton bush at bama alive replace good to have you here lets go to bill in iraq 1st of all with he will he will if you could describe the atmosphere around you in erbil today what would you tell us. Well generally people are quite relieved by the size of the attack so i think initially people were thinking that listening to what the. Grand ayatollah said in iran that there will be an all out attack a major attack a strong revenge but this morning people walk up to. The sound of 2 blasts around the repeal but in the morning when the pictures 1st came out they didnt fall on either civilian or military targets they fell into areas with very actually with no down damage at all with no casualties at all which was quite a relief for for all of the people and now everyone is this starting to talk about negotiations between iran and america and they are hoping that involvement in iraq or iraq as a country be part of that negotiation between the 2 countries. It is that it is still quite tense the situation. People are still were waiting for the american response to that but after listening to president obama to president. Nixon ask that the worst is behind us could be behind us here whole time for a moment here i want to play to something which is one of our reporters in iraq on monday he said this is before these terror attacks happened on iraqi and u. S. Bases and this is what people were telling have a porter a month. And an easy mood has settled over a book that scarred by decades of intermittent war people in iraqs capital know the eerie suspense that precedes one in coffee shops old and young alike who worry about being caught in the middle as the u. S. And iran threaten further escalation of the stuff out of the bottle we dont want the bottle to come to our country they want to start a war they want to settle accounts but we are the ones who lose young men lose money lose infrastructure we will benefit from this. So that was simone 14 reporting just a sweet im wondering for you the u. S. Perspective. Officials thinking about what people down on the ground are going to be feeling experiencing do they have that tension to they have that fear in us in the us well if they do and if its personified in President Trump its really a really distorted sense of whats going on on the ground what was astonishing to me was in response to whats going on and the possibility of u. S. Troops being asked to leave iraq President Trump said that 1st iraq would have to pay us back for the enormous base that we built an enormous military base that we built the iraqis and they would have to pass bad for the enormous embassy that we built that i see invited here as the invasion into iraq you know its the beginning. I think there is. A cave in there thats me and. That all. And. I think it would. Be a lot of. Well he would go ahead. On the issue of america and iran i think the people of iraq are split. Into 2 camps some of them and this is a think more all of the kurds the sunnis who are both of their m. P. s to Parliament Session that the resolution saying asking for the u. S. To pull out of. Iraq they boycotted the session and the mood on the street is that the u. S. Just stay because they are still as unable to stand on its feet because of the threat of isis and because of the internal. Political situation that it is and still not mature enough for for the people of iraq to rely on a political process on the other hand the demonstrators in iraq they want to have a more realistic go Decision Making process a more realistic government that looks that doesnt take this and the more realistic political process that theres not take decisions based on high emotions is or based on reactions or based on serving in the genders of terror against the interest of the iraqi people so the move in parliament a few days ago was seen as a as a proof of the reunion move and very little of it to do was to do with actually are available at league america to lead a hell of. A man how tight from my because ive got you speaking out of everybody hillary finish the point that you are making of which i mean how tight for a moment just a 2nd so i can hear everybody i think an important change is coming in the way that President Trump is trying to change the narrative about iraq that is incredibly disturbing and important to understand americans i dont think ever really understood the true mosaic of Iraqi Society the differences the subtleties the nuances of an Iraqi Society but what President Trump is trying to do now because he thinks that were probably going to get. From iraq one way or the other he is now trying to in a sense vilify all iraqis as ungrateful for the Great American sacrifice everything that the United States interest in trying to view and what hes trying to change in the narrative that the u. S. Has done for iraqis and hes doing this by saying iraq now or is the United States billions of dollars for these military bases for the for the embassy that weve built in the heart of baghdad hes doing that for a very particular purpose to change the narrative domestically here in the United States in the lead up to his Election Campaign and coming this november its dangerous its in cindy kerry and it has the threat of not just the u. S. And iran fighting in iraq but hes trying to get the iraqis to appear that theyre antiamerican to show the iraqis that the United States is leaving is leaving in this way so i guess i just need to show you. Have a look here on my laptop the conversation on you tube hes going so fast that trying to isolate the comments is really difficult but theres a back and forth going on here let me give you an example you can jump off it now so that i can just pull up a couple of things for you see here what people are saying in response he must team as is all right now i would like to know what the truly planning and hey how they feel in regards to recent developments on trumps b. Haas hey you you were in such civil well in terms of what trump is trying to do i think he is really trying to make this about the United States having done such a great job for iraq and iraqis being ungrateful and hes trying to poison this relationship between the u. S. And iraq to justify pulling troops out of iraq that is going to add fuel to the fire that we already see on the ground game and do you feel theres a plan for you and the aegis. And its about time you see susan you know government has for how to deal with the 1st gulf between iran and libya the point there is not just. The spat with something very powerful but the government and a lot united so called to basically have a single if you will side the parliament and the government as well as well as of his actually the kurds which is that they have like their own kind of policy and approach and they have. Actually theyre so excited to see the coalition leaving in a specific way and very close as well and they will have the shadow kind which is actually they are so probably right thing and theyre against the day. That the american and coalition. Presence in iraq. Itself was divided especially as of late 2 days ago the problem is session then we saw only we 128 members only 170 showed up which is all of them was from one to broke and we know that actually to come to she outlives so basically this is actually the issue that is why there was a prediction and we mostly aimed at the country is that the caucuses will give language and in america any kind of programming militias included and that is the key clue and release conan lets see now called example today d the. Strike that happened today in a block from the iranian side we didnt hear the same voices fail to act with the end they are trying and trying thats changing the law from a lot of the governments are a lot united and. Pickaxes the quality of the country. He was just wondering where the antigovernment protests are standing right now it were a rack is under a different kind of a fred because of the back and forth between iran and the u. S. And im going to push back im going to push now im going to reside here flaming rhymes with frank and im going to share that with the idea if he were stunned stunned stand by for a moment amen thank you. You know they took the protest started with the slogan do what i need homes that give us our country back and one of the behaviors of the Iraqi Government that led to these protests is the leaning over backwards to countries like iran iran to countries like the United States whatever they want to the they part of the failure a big part of the failure of the Iraqi Government is not being able to regulate to create a balance 3 nations ship where neither with their own nor with the United States of america not a single american president to visit iraq and almost all of them came on and house visits all of them where secret visits they came in after arrival the visit was announced and they go to military bases meet their soldiers and then by the way some of them call the leaders of the government others just fly out and leave to other areas so neither iran nor america really respected the this sovereignty of the oak the fair act as a country and this is part mostly the fault of the government of iraq this is on one hand or theres another very important issue on the issue of that parliaments resolution to toot toot for to have the u. S. Troops leave the country the presence of the u. S. Troops in iraq is done by an agreement Security Agreement between the iraq fully fledged Iraqi Government and the United States the government of the United States the current government is a carrot taking government this means it doesnt have the authority of the parliament. By nature it is unable to opt out of such extreme and the government that has to renegotiate the security deal with the United States has to be an elected and fully fledged government the current one is a caretaker one so thats why really they the decision of the of the parliament is neither here nor there. Surely. Approaching your none of them. But this is the only reason im pausing everybody is because theres so much response coming on from people who are watching the show you go 1st and im going to put a couple of these points to you from on high i think that the point is very important that for for President Trump and i think maybe unfortunately for americans even more broadly than that the relevance of iraq as an individual sovereign country is really falling by the wayside and i think that was dramatically shown in President Trumps response smore ning to the iranian retaliation for the killing of course and so on the money and the other iraqis who were in his party trump said this morning that it really wasnt a big deal they just struck iraq they just struck iraq i wanted to resonate for everybody they just struck iraq and for me some of my colleagues here were saying well were there any american casualties when they 1st heard the news and i said well no i hear theyre no american casualties and i hear there were no iraqi casualties and the response was well that doesnt really matter the concern was only about american casualties in the sovereign country of iraq this is being reflected on the. Sweetest says this is definitely on the acceptable iraq should not be a battleground for the United States and iran iraqis to suffer out of wars and they just want to rebuild their country in the same peace and then this one right now manuel is actually watching as were speaking here i think the u. S. Is overstepping its boundaries why cant the u. S. Withdrawal and leave issues concerning in the middle east for middle east countries to deal with. But i should have been going on for decades you know a lot of well there should Important Reasons i mean for trump personally it would be humiliating so he wants to leave in a way where he is the he has done something great for his base here in the United States but more importantly what is fundamental to understand is the United States has never really sought peace and stability because if there really were peace and stability iraq would be critically important as a. Military it could have thousands of men under arms with an incredible military the United States doesnt want that we do not want independent arab power so iraq as a fully functioning stable state with a full military the United States isnt interested we were not interested in that many other countries having fully fully independent independent power either thats why after world war 2 it was so important that both japan and germany be demit demilitarized in order to allow them to grow its economic powers thats really the only way that the United States in terms of its power politics can think about the middle east if its completely neutered of any military independence i want to show you where you leave. It he would let me just add another thought and then you can just jump off the back of of that thought because i would also approach another analysts who is based in iraq to see what his perspective might be about where do we go next im going to push everybody forward and then have a listen to that before we pick up a conversation. But events that happened on january 3rd there gridley him. Was able to quote its only in the new quarters to know what the current government the leaders of that it would require a strong leader that has a vision for this country to implement a policy that would be foreign meddling. Well see this is exactly why the protests that took place in iraq on october 1st last see it were very important because they didnt mans that they had was to bring some sense into the politics of the of iraq and they called for Good Governance and a key issue of Good Governance is to to to almost entirely change the current Political Class of the country by changing the electorate know they have made some progress they elect a loose changed from this system into a district system with the 1st with the 1st past the post voting and the election within in terms of the results and who wins the seat to parliament these things are all attempts to try and bring in a more Representative Government a government that has not been installed by deals between iran and the United States so far in iraq since 2003 every Prime Minister we had that had to be an agreement between iran and between then and the United States over or at least neither sides shouldnt oppose and with this kind of says you in this kind of Selection Process whoever comes to power will be weak will be indebted to either to teheran or to washington and would they would not really have the interests of the country at heart as well as a priority as we have seen when the Prime Ministers yesterday he receives a phone call from the iranians that they are going to bomb and then you received another phone call from the americas he became like a phone operator this is not the job of a Prime Minister to receive phone calls and say im going im going to be bombing your country he should be having a much stronger stance he should not be listening to the hardliners or the pro the iranian militias who are bullying the political. Process in iraq and trying to push things in there that action or in the direction of the satisfies iran and the break her loose when when iran attacks when america attacks present silly money on all iraqi learn but then they do nothing when