By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog
Iraq’s influential cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, has released a statement saying that if US troops do not leave the country, Iraq will turn into a new Vietnam for Washington.
Sadr, who leads the largest bloc in parliament, said in a letter to the assembly that a parliamentary resolution calling on the government to end foreign troop presence did not go far enough.
“I consider this a weak response insufficient against American violation of Iraqi sovereignty and regional escalation,” the letter read.
Sadr said a security agreement with the United States should be cancelled immediately, the US embassy should be closed down, US troops must be expelled in a humiliating manner, and communication with the US government should be criminalized.
“Finally, I call specifically on the Iraqi resistance groups and the groups outside Iraq more generally to meet immediately and announce the formation of the International Resistance Legions,” he said.
The US military has announced preparation for “movement out of Iraq,” after the country’s parliament voted to oust foreign troops.
Brigadier General William Seely, who oversees US Task Force Iraq, sent a letter to the head of Iraq’s joint operations command on Monday, less than week after the US assassinated Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani, various news agencies reported.
“In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner,” read the letter.
It added that the forces would “be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement.”
I don’t for one second trust this statement. Look Washington’s “withdrawal” from Syria! They’re still there and are stealing Syria’s oil now. I wont believe it until I see it.
In a related development Kata’eb Hezbollah has issued another threat to the American President Donald Trump after he said he would not withdraw troops from Iraq until Baghdad paid back the U.S.
According to the statement from Kata’eb Hezbollah, which is a faction inside the Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd Al-Shaabi), if the U.S. forces remain inside Iraq, they will turn the American bases into rubble.
“The decision to end the foreign military presence is a great victory in the march to liberate Iraq from the enemies,” Kata’eb Hezbollah said.
“What was achieved from a great victory is a first step in the march to liberate and purify Iraq from the abomination of enemies, and it must be followed by other important steps, including: closing the American embassy of evil, supporting what was stated in the contents of Sayyed Muqtada Al-Sadr’s message, and adopting these steps in the priorities of political and national power for the next stage,” they added.
Finally I’d like to share a speech during a mass that was held in the evangelical church of Aleppo, Syria to honor the martyrdom of General Soleimani who had an essential role in the liberation battle of Aleppo against US-backed terrorists.
“All what Qassem Soleimani did was stand up for Christians against ISIS and Al Qaeda”
A mass was held in the evangelical church of Aleppo, Syria to honor the martyrdom of General Soleimani who had an essential role in the liberation battle of Aleppo against US-backed Jihadists. pic.twitter.com/yEgU4FyRAO
— هادي نصرالله (@HadiNasrallah) January 6, 2020
UPDATE1: BREAKING: @EsperDoD says memo on withdrawal is not accurate “there’s been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq.”
Sure the withdrawal was preplanned.
But the release of the letter is not synchronised with the scenario…
Let s say it is a glitch showing the preplanned nature of the withdrawal…
They have zero intentions to leave! None. Not going to happen.
More war and killing it will be.
At some point in time you have to ask yourself if perhaps these guys want to die, a win or die scenario rather than win the moral ground simply go home one. I can see these guys in a gymnaisum at night cheering themselves on to victory while the opposition rearms for a saudi oil terminal event.
A pair of gladiators ready to do battle after all the video game and religious rehersals have played themselves out.
A really big show tonight, or no?
UPDATE1: BREAKING: @EsperDoD says memo on withdrawal is not accurate “there’s been no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq.”
UPDATE2: The authenticity of the letter, which was addressed to the Iraqi defense ministry’s Combined Joint Operations Baghdad, was confirmed to Reuters independently by an Iraqi military source.
“That letter is a draft, it was a mistake, it should not have been released,” Seely told reporters. U.S. Army public relations officials said earlier it was real, but insisted that the U.S. will no leave the Arab nation.
And there you go. What do Trump worshippers have to say for their gangster hero now? They are not able to discern the obvious.
Thanks for the sitrep Aram.
Moqtada is a very interesting man. A Shia cleric, scion of a prominent family, suffered much under Saddam, fought the US occupation early on, loud critic of Abadi and close to Iran but not too enamoured of Iranian influence in Iraq. An Iraqi nationalist if ever I saw one — he didn’t want Iraq to be involved in any US-Iran war.
Going by past history viz Mahdi Army, I’ve no doubt his proposed ‘International Resistance Legions’ will cause problems for US/Israel in Iraq if they decide to ignore Iraq’s parliament (vote was only 52% ayes) and stay. If it comes to fruition, the IRL could turn out to be a big spanner in US/Israel designs on Iran.
It’s significant that he used the Vietnam analogy. Way I see it if circumstances don’t change Iraq could be split like Vietnam was. No 17th Parallel of course but Pro-AZ Empire forces (ARVN) vs Moqtada’s IRL (Viet Minh). After seeing his country suffer 20 years of almost continuous armed conflict does Moqtada fancy himself Iraq’s Ho Chi Minh I wonder? Liberate Iraq once and for all not just from occupation but also from continuous destruction, deprivation, humiliation and grief. And start to rebuild this great civilization again.
The split will be between the Kurds (Iraqi Kurdistan) and the rest of Iraq. A very weak split that won’t survive intervention by Turkey against Kurdish attempts at an autonomous state.
Moqtada is unfortunately not of the calibre of Ho Chi Minh or General Giap. That honour goes to Soleimani.
In the early stage of WW2 some British politicians questioned the wisdom of the alliance with Poland since it effectively let a British decision be made in Poland IE Declaration of War. I mention this to point out that it is generally unwise to let others decide your foreign policy. Donald Trump did exactly that in Syria with his threat to send in the missiles if Syria used chemical weapons….effectively putting US foreign policy in the hands of the white helmets. We all know what transpired was exactly as the US MIC wanted. He has now done it again only this time a war will ensue. We can possibly think that the man child didn’t think this through, but I think it is all part of a plan. The Israelis have been trying to get the US to declare war on Iran for years and Netanyahu badly needs a distraction from his corruption case. How hard will it be for Mossad to rig up an event? No doubt an undamaged Iranian passport or a membership card for the Quds Force would miraculously be found near the rigged event.
In my view it all stinks of pre planning for a war. The plan would no doubt be to bomb Iran to a much degraded position in order to weaken the axis of resistance. The US and Israel know that their position is weakening every year so perhaps they think striking now is the best option to delay the evil (for them) day.
The threat to bomb cultural sites is appalling and would constitute a crime against humanity. How very far the United States has fallen from grace.
On the good side they are showing the rest of the world their true colours and even better they really have not thought this thing through. P.S. I am not anti Semitic and not Muslim either.