The United States hopes to discuss the entire strategic framework of its relationship with Iraq soon, a U.S. envoy said on Tuesday, as the fate of a U.S. military mission there remains in doubt after a drone strike that killed an Iranian general. Iraq’s parliament has voted to ask the United States to withdraw its 5,000-strong force after the Jan. 3 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, which killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the Iraqi leader of a powerful pro-Iran armed faction. Washington has paused some of the military activity of its troops in Iraq, which were invited back into the country in 2014 as part of a mission to fight the Islamic State militant group in both Iraq and Syria, after withdrawing three years earlier.
