By Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman
When Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel U.S. forces from the country earlier this month, the Trump administration’s response was swift and forceful: it refused to withdraw and, for good measure, threatened financial retaliation, saying it would freeze Iraq’s accounts at the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The threat seems to have been effective. Although Iraqi officials still seethe over a U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad on January 3, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has said that his caretaker government lacks the authority to push for a U.S. withdrawal, and American troops have resumed joint operations with their Iraqi counterparts.
But that sense of normalcy is deceiving. U.S. forces were in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. By refusing to withdraw them, the Trump administration is turning a relationship of choice into one of coercion. Just as alarming, Washington is doing so by threatening to starve its ally of critical funds, a step that could set off a financial crisis in Iraq, perhaps even economic collapse.
Washington’s stranglehold over the Iraqi economy is an extreme example of a broader, worrying trend: more and more often, the United States is using its privileged role as custodian of the global financial system to coerce and punish those who object to its methods, be they friend or foe. It has slowly usurped a system intended to provide benefits to the world at large and made of it an instrument for its own geopolitical goals.
In turning financial relationships into a tool of empire, the United States follows in the footsteps of ancient Athens. The experience of this predecessor does not augur well for Washington. Athens used its financial power to abuse its allies and in doing so precipitated its own ruination. The United States risks doing the same.
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