2020 will see a new strategy for Iraq?

Hahahaha….sorry I could not write that before a good laugh.

Well the embassy in Iraq was attacked and that was 40 years after another embassy attack….

Trump’s “massive pressure” campaign on Iran is blowing up Iraq in its wake…..

President Trump’s go-to policy on Iran, the “maximum pressure” campaign, has been based on blaming Iran for every single thing that goes wrong in the region, and threatening to make them pay, as Trump put it today, “a very BIG PRICE!”

The threats hadn’t accomplished anything, despite confidence from the administration that they eventually will. Instead, they seem to have brought US ties with neighboring Iraq to the verge of collapse, with the US attacking Iraqi militia Ketaib Hezbollah, presenting them as “Iranian,” and then threatening more attacks.

Sunday attacks on bases inside Iraq led to protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad. The embassy was stormed, and the US responded by blaming Iran some more, and threatening to make them pay. Because that’s the sum total of the maximum pressure campaign.

But that campaign against Iran is bringing US ties with Iraq to the brink of outright collapse, with influential Iraqi politicians at the protests and warnings that US attacks and sovereignty violations are forcing Iraq to revise the relationship.

It is also exposing the US position in the Middle East as hollow and surprisingly unable to adapt to even minor issues. There are troops in Syria trying to steal oil, troops in Turkey facing the risk of expulsion, and Iraq’s parliament is probably going to be addressing kicking the 5,000 US troops out of there before long at this rate.

All the US has to show for it is the hostility to Iran that they’ve always had, and threats to escalate that into another disastrous war. Everything else in the region is tenuous, and as shown in Iraq can be mucked up by a long weekend of bad policy decisions.

(antiwar.com)

But not to worry the US has a plan…the same plan it always has…more troops….

The US went into this past week with about 5,000 ground troops in Iraq, and with Pentagon officials suggesting that deployment is more or less permanent. It was meant to be one of those lazy, open-ended overseas deployments, nominally to bring stability.

Then on Friday an Iraqi base got hit with rockets, and on Sunday, US warplanes started attacking bases in Iraq and Syria belonging to a militia that is part of the Iraqi government. After multiple Iraq Wars since 2003, the US presence is looking complicated again.

Tuesday saw protests against the US Embassy, with the US rushing Marines and Apache helicopters to the site to try to defend the embassy. That’s just the first step.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says another 750 paratroopers will be deployed to Kuwait immediately. Another 4,000 paratroopers are being told to prepare for deployment in the days ahead.

Despite President Trump saying he intends to hold Iran fully accountable for everything that happens, he’s also saying he expects Iraq to protect the US Embassy.

On top of that, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is speaking with Iraq’s PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who actually resigned weeks ago in the wake of an Iranian consulate getting burned to the ground. At the time, the US was encouraging the protesters. Now, Abdul-Mahdi is facing the US Embassy in peril, and the US accusing Iran of being behind it.

(antiwar.com)

So far in the Middle East I do not see anything different from years past……and then Trump’s policy changes…

On the outskirts of the Baghdad International Airport, a US drone attacked a delegation including the top figure at Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), killing him as well as several others, including Iran’s Quds Forces commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The White House confirmed President Trump ordered the attack, and emphasized that they considered Soleimani a “terrorist.”

Details are continuing to emerge on the attack and killings, but indications are that Gen. Soleimani is dead, as is Iraq’s PMU media chief Mohammed Reda al-Jabri, along with his guards. Iraqi state media also reported Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of the PMU, to have been killed in the attack. Five PMU and two “guests” were reported killed. Soleimani is assumed to be a guest, and Lebanese Hezbollah figure Muhammad al-Kawtharani is also reported to have been slain.

The PMU has already issued a statement on social media reporting on the deaths, and blaming them on a “cowardly US attack.” Another PMU spokesman blamed the US and Israel jointly.

This is certainly an act of war not just Iran, but also against Iraq, which is almost certain to be livid over a US attack against its largest civilian airport and assassination of two top figures of its PMU paramilitary force.

The Pentagon has issued a statement confirming the attack, trying to present it as purely defensive in nature, and claiming Soleimani was planning to kill US diplomats. The attack comes just hours after Defense Secretary Mark Esper threatened to attack Iran, and amid repeated warnings for Americans to get out of Iraq, especially the Baghdad area

(antiwar.com)

Is this going to be that tipping point?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”