Obama deals (again) with Iraq, Iran

USA TODAY

Iran and Iraq -- two nations that have played large roles in U.S. foreign policy in recent decades -- are back at the top of President Obama's agenda.

Allegations that Iran plotted to kill a Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington have prompted Obama's team to seek more global sanctions against the Islamic regime in Tehran.

That includes what The New York Times described as pressure on the United Nations to release classified information showing that Iran is experimenting with nuclear weapons technology.

The United States says Iran helps insurgents in Iraq -- when the United States plans a complete pull-out from Iraq at the end of this year.

The United States is reportedly abandoning any plans to keep a residual military force in Iraq after 2011, the Associated Press reports, largely because Iraq's government refuses to grant immunity to American troops from legal action in Iraqi courts.

Per an existing agreement, the United States will withdraw all of its troops from Iraq at the end of this year, though about 5,000 security contractors and personnel will remain to protect the American Embassy and other facilities.

Iran's efforts to expand its influence in the wake of the Iraq War is likely to further complicate a complex American-Iranian relationship going back more than a half-century.

A U.S.-backed coup put the Shah on the Iranian throne in 1953. Oil-rich Iran acted largely as an American client state until the Islamic revolution in 1979 led by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

When Iran and Iraq went to war in the 1980s, the United States got close to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to get back at Iran.

The Saddam relationship ended for good when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, leading to the Persian Gulf War.

The Iraq War, begun in 2003, led to Saddam's execution, and Iran's alleged interference with Iraq's struggles to forge a democracy have led to more friction with the United States.

And so it goes.