U.S. Demands Iraq Either
Join U.S. War Against Iran or Be Destroyed
by Eric
Zuesse
January 29, 2020
Eric Zuesse, originally
posted at The Saker
U.S. officials have now made
clear that if U.S. forces become removed from Iraq as Iraq’s Parliament
unanimously demanded and Iraq’s Prime Minister affirmed on January 5th, then
the U.S. will try to break Iraq up into separate Sunni and Shia nations, and will
also definitely impose sanctions against Iraq or (if Iraq becomes successfully
broken up) against the Shia-governed portion of Iraq, in order to destroy Iraq
(or the Shiite regions in Iraq) totally.
The U.S. is determined to
separate both Lebanon and Syria (both of which are supported by Shia Iran) from
Iran so that Iran will become internationally isolated unless and until Iran
again becomes controlled by the U.S. Government as it was during the period
from 1953 when U.S. imposed the Shah’s dictatorship there, till 1979, when
Iranians finally took back control over their country and kicked out the
U.S.-and-allied foreign oil companies.
By far the best
international journalism about the situation today regarding Iraq has come from
the Middle East Eye, which headlined on January 23rd, “US seeking to carve out Sunni state
as its influence in Iraq wanes”, and sub-headed, “With Shia parties pressuring American
troops to leave, Washington wants to create an autonomous region around Anbar
to maintain its presence.” Their reporter in Baghdad, Suadad al-Salhy, stated
that,
Backed into a corner and
influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks been promoting a plan
to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials from both
countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the
officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties’ attempts to expel
American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic
land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled
Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of using land routes into
Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of
carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007 proposition by Joe Biden, who
is now vying to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. …
“The creation of a Sunni
region has always been an option for the US. The Iranians cannot be allowed to
reach the Mediterranean Sea or benefit from the land bridge connecting them to
Hezbollah” in Lebanon, the former US official told MEE.
“The project is American,
not Sunni. The presence of the American forces has been the guarantor for the
Sunnis and the Kurds, so if the US has to leave Iraq, then establishing a Sunni
region in western Iraq is its plan to curb Iran and its arms in the Middle
East,” he added.
“We are talking about
establishing a country, not an administrative region.” …
The Arab Gulf states allied
to US, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, support and finance
this project, Sunni and Shia leaders and officials told MEE.
“Funding is in place,
international pressure is in place, and the necessary military strength is in
place to create this region,” a prominent Sunni leader familiar with the talks
said.
“Neither Iran nor the Shia
forces will be able to stand against the project because the US and Gulf states
back it,” the leader added.
“A huge amount of money and
investment offered by the Sunni states is at stake, and these will turn the
Anbar desert into green oases and rebuild the destroyed areas in Mosul and
Salah al-Din. Who will care about oil?”
This is a war by U.S., Saudi
Arabia, the other Arab oil monarchies, and Israel, against Iran, and it will
become also a U.S.-v.-Russia war unless Russia complies with America’s demand
to stay out, and not to defend Iran.
Anbar Province is one of two
places where the fanatical Sunni ISIS was located in Iraq, the other being the
city of Mosul directly to the north of Anbar. Both areas are so heavily Sunni
so that in order for Iraq’s mainly Shiite government to become able to wage an
effective war against ISIS in Iraq, it first had to convince Anbar’s
residents that this would be something which would benefit all of Iraq and not
only Shiites in Iraq.
Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities where Iraq’s Government were especially trying to defeat ISIS in
2014, are in Anbar Province. Until 2015, Iranian General Soleimani’s forces (all of them
Shiites) were virtually the only effective forces trying to exterminate ISIS; and therefore, Iraq’s Government had to emphasize
that killing ISIS was a patriotic, not a sectarian, matter. On 17
September 2016 U.S. President Obama bombed Syria’s army in the heart of Syria’s
oil-producing region, the city Deir Ezzor, for Syria’s ISIS to move in and take
Syria’s oil.
During October through December 2016, two of Syria’s main enemies, Obama, and
Turkey’s leader Erdogan, established a system to reinforce ISIS in Deir Ezzor,
by supplying them ISIS fighters fleeiing from Mosul in Iraq’s north. On 11
December 2016, I headlined “Obama
& Erdogan Move ISIS from Iraq to Syria, to Weaken Assad”, and reported that the U.S. and Turkey were offering
a deal to fighters for ISIS in Mosul, a way to stay alive but not in Iraq. They
would relocate west into Syria, so as to assist the U.S. and its allies to
overthrow, or at least seize territory from, Syria’s Government. America’s war
against Syria used basically three
proxy-forces as boots-on-the-ground: Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Kurds — all three being Sunnis. The Sauds provided
most of the funding for it, because the goal was to
place Syria under the control of the Sauds. And the U.S. sticks
by that goal.
No matter how much the people in Syria oppose it. It’s not only Trump who is obsessed with this
goal; Obama was, though he wasn’t as obsessed with destroying Iran as
Trump is.
On January 24th, Middle East
Eye’s Washington reporter Ali Harb headlined “At what point do US troops in Iraq
become an occupation force?” and he took the most literalist approach
possible to this question, in which the obvious answer should be “as soon as we
invaded and occupied the country on 20 March 2003.” He got an answer from the
U.S. Government, saying that “diplomatic notes, which are not public, remain
the legal basis for the presence of about 5,000 American soldiers in Iraq
today” and that “the letters contain a provision that gives US forces one year
to withdraw after they are formally asked by Baghdad to leave.” So: if this
U.S. Government, which has become infamous for violating its contracts (such as
the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris Climate Agreement), alleges that it
can stay in Iraq for another year and yet still remain within the bounds of
those “diplomatic notes, which are not public” — and which a supplicant Iraqi
Government had allegedly consented to in 2014 — then Iraq’s Government will
need to wait until 5 January 2021 before accusing the U.S. Government of
violating that secret and coerced “1-year cancellation clause.” And, if Iraq’s
Government is, at that time, still insisting that U.S. terminate its occupation
of Iraq, then, Joe Biden’s 2007 plan will start being implemented, to break
Iraq into its Shiite Arab southeast (friendly toward Iran), Sunni Kurd northeast
(backed by U.S.), and Sunni Arab southwestern desert half of Iraq’s expanse
(hostile toward Iran). There would be no more land-connection between Iran to
Iraq’s east and Syria to Iraq’s west. For Iran, that would be like cutting off
its two arms. Furthermore, Ali Harb noted that the Obama-Trump Administrations’
Pentagon official Brett McGurk said that “If the U.S. leaves Iraq, it means
NATO, 20 western partners also leave.” McGurk was suggesting that Iraq without
U.S. would become then again a U.S. enemy. The U.S. regime is determined to
destroy, one by one, each country that tries to block U.S.-and-allied
billionaires from taking them over. Here are two maps of Iraq, which show what
trisecting Iraq would mean:
00
00
So: Syria would be
surrounded by U.S. allies.
According to MEE’s Suadad
al-Salhy in Baghdad,
Leaders familiar with the
ongoing talks on partitioning Iraq said that Sunni politicians are seriously
involved in the discussions and are waiting to see the demonstrations’ outcome
before deciding on their path.
“The meetings are taking
place in full swing, and all the Sunni leaders are attending. But they deny
this publicly, waiting for the conditions that protect them,” a prominent Sunni
leader familiar with the talks told MEE.
If the protesters are able
to force through a national government that takes care of all Iraqi
communities, then the Sunnis will reject any planned autonomous area, the
leader said.
Failure to achieve this, he
warned, would see Sunnis supporting the partition project en masse.
“Sunnis do not want to be
part of the Shia crescent, and refuse to submit to Iranian control. So they
will offer the Americans permission to build military bases in their lands, in
exchange for the necessary support to establish the desired region.”
The Atlantic Council is
NATO’s main PR organization. Ali Harb reported:
“We’re not at a point where
the US and Iraq are enemies,” said Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq
Initiative at the Atlantic Center think-tank in Washington. …
Kadhim, of the Atlantic
Council, called for negotiating an American military withdrawal from Iraq in a
way that would ease the tensions of the past few weeks and preserve the
strategic partnership between Washington and Baghdad. …
Kadhim said the “knee-jerk
reactions” that Baghdad and Washington have been displaying are not helpful.
“At the end of the day, the
United States cannot impose its troops on Iraq. There’s no justification for
keeping troops in Iraq against the will of the Iraqi people, and it’s not in
the interest of the United States to do that,” he told MEE. …
The US envoy for the
Coalition against IS, James Jeffery, … also issued an implicit warning to
Baghdad on Thursday [Jan. 23].
At a news conference, he
said that if the US and Iraq were to negotiate a troop withdrawal, everything
else would be on the table, including Washington’s diplomatic support to
Baghdad.
“We’re not interested in
sitting down and talking only about withdrawal,” Jeffery said.
“Any conversations that the
Iraqis want to have with us about the United States in Iraq, we believe should
and must cover the entire gamut of our relationship, which goes way beyond our
forces, goes way beyond security.”
Kadhim said imposing
sanctions on Iraq would be harmful to both nations and counterproductive to
Washington’s stated aim of reducing Iranian influence in Baghdad.
—————
Investigative historian Eric
Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The
Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and
of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created
Christianity.
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