{"id":2188269,"date":"2024-02-28T23:26:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T04:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/iranian-appeasement-biden-and-harris-decline-white-house-meeting-with-kurdish-leader\/"},"modified":"2024-02-28T23:26:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T04:26:42","slug":"iranian-appeasement-biden-and-harris-decline-white-house-meeting-with-kurdish-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/iranian-appeasement-biden-and-harris-decline-white-house-meeting-with-kurdish-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden and Harris refuse White House meeting with Kurdish leader, signaling Iranian appeasement"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Firanian-appeasement-biden-and-harris-decline-white-house-meeting-with-kurdish-leader%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2188269&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><blockquote>\n<h2>Iraq&#8217;s\u2063 Kurdish Region:\u2064 A \u2064Stronghold Against Iranian Infiltration<\/h2>\n<figure><figcaption>(Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>\n<p>The president and\u200c vice president \u2063have both declined face-to-face meetings this week with\u2064 Masrour Barzani, the\u200c prime minister \u2064of Iraq&#8217;s Kurdish region. Barzani, a staunch \u200dU.S. ally, has played a crucial \u200crole in preventing \u2064Iranian efforts\u2063 to infiltrate Iraq, according \u200bto sources familiar \u200bwith the\u200c matter.<\/p>\n<p>Barzani is currently in Washington,\u2062 D.C., for a series of high-level meetings with U.S. officials. This visit comes at a time when Iranian terrorist proxies are wreaking\u200d havoc in Iraq,\u200b launching attacks on American positions. The Kurdish region of Iraq, which operates semi-autonomously, has remained a steadfast ally of the United States,\u200c actively countering Iran&#8217;s growing influence in the \u200bcountry.<\/p>\n<p>A\u200d meeting with either President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris would have\u200b sent a strong message of support to the Kurds, who\u200d are facing financial difficulties\u2062 due to the Baghdad government&#8217;s decision to cut off their oil revenues. As Baghdad grows closer to Iran, the loss of \u2062oil sales revenue is threatening stability in the Kurdistan region.<\/p>\n<p>Sources, \u200dincluding former\u200d U.S. officials, expressed concern that neither Biden \u200bnor Harris \u2062made\u200d time to meet \u2063with Barzani, especially as Iran continues to fund attacks on American forces \u2063and wage a multi-pronged war against Israel in the \u200dregion.<\/p>\n<p>While it is expected that Barzani will\u200b meet with U.S. national security adviser\u2064 Jake Sullivan, Kurdish\u2062 representatives have been lobbying for \u200ca face-to-face meeting with Biden or Harris. The White House has already committed to hosting a meeting between \u2062Biden and Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, further highlighting tensions between Iraq&#8217;s ruling parties.<\/p>\n<p>Kurdish officials have\u200c emphasized to the White House that a high-profile meeting would send a significant signal at a\u200d time when U.S. forces are under attack by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, and Tehran is positioning itself\u200b as a \u200bkey ally of the Baghdad government.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the week, Barzani met with Secretary of \u200cState Antony Blinken,\u200b who urged him to work more closely with Iraq&#8217;s government to ease tensions. The U.S. National Security \u200dCouncil did not respond to a request for\u200d comment on the situation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The White House refuses to meet with U.S. friends \u200cand partners from Kurdistan but happily invites an Iraqi prime minister to the Oval\u2063 Office after he was \u200bappointed\u2064 by Iran-backed \u2063terrorists and \u2063did not stop 180 attacks against \u2062our forces,&#8221; said \u2063Michael Knights, a regional expert with the Washington Institute think tank. &#8220;It looks to many as if \u200cthe United States cannot tell friends from enemies, nor\u2063 up \u2062from down, in the Middle East.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Republican foreign policy leaders have repeatedly\u2064 warned that Iraq is &#8220;on the verge\u200b of being lost to Iran&#8221; as\u200c the Islamic Republic arms militant factions across\u2063 the country and \u200bworks to isolate Barzani and the pro-U.S. Kurdish population.<\/p>\n<p>One former U.S. official described \u2063the\u200c White House&#8217;s\u200b stance on a Barzani meeting as equivalent to &#8220;Iranian appeasement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is quite \u2064telling that the \u2062White House refuses\u2062 to \u200bmeet with the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq\u2014America&#8217;s most loyal and \u200csteadfast partner who has fought with America for over\u2062 30 years, including in \u2064the defeat \u2064of \u200bISIS, and the only part of Iraq that has U.S. government financing for \u2062energy projects,&#8221; said the \u2064source, \u200cwho would speak only on background. &#8220;This is Iranian appeasement at the White House.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to sources, the president and vice president refused to meet with Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq&#8217;s Kurdish region. Barzani, a crucial U.S. ally, has effectively prevented Iranian infiltration into Iraq. This decision raises concerns about the relationship between the U.S. and the Kurdish region. (55 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":2188270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/biden-harris2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2188269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/biden-harris2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2188270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}