Following the killing by the U.S. of Iran’s IRGC Qods Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, a U.S. official maintained that “we want to stay on in Iraq. We have an important mission there, the coalition. We just spoke with most of the key coalition members this morning, making that message to them… we are ready to talk with the Iranians. We’ve tried to do this in the past. That’s on the table”.