Today Juan Cole reports from a newspaper in Iraq that since Mohammed al-Allawi has become the new prime minister in Iraq, there has been a meeting in Baghdad between the Russian ambassador and the Iraqi milirary Chief of Staff, and the Iraqi president, Saleh, will be visiting Moscow shortly. A variety of issues and possible areas of cooperation apparently are being discussed, but the biggie apparently is that there is serious discussion of Russia replacing the US in providing air support for the Iraqi military for its ongoing campaign against the remnants of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
It looks like the new PM is very much a part of the move in the Iraqi parliament to get US troops out of Iraq, something that those in Washington have been pretending is not for real. Juan Cole reports that key in this discussion is that when Trump killed Iranian general Soleimani at the Baghdad airport, he also killed Iraqi general al-Mohandis, a point I have posted on here before, and one that almost nobody talks about in the US (In the Dem debate just over ABC’s David Muir tried to get the Dem candidates to say they would have killed Soleimani). But what has got lots of Iraqis upset about this is that it was a blatant violation of iraqi soverignty. Cole reports on Putin sending out a message promising to respect Iraqi sovereignty.
This may not come to pass, but for sure the only thing that Trump had to say about all this was to brag about killing Soleimani, no menton of the 67 American soldiers suffering brain injury due to the Iranian missilee attack in respoinse to this, and also the 170 people who died in an airplane accidentally shot down by the Iranians due to their being on high alert as a result of Trump’s attack, much less a word about leaders and people in Iraq being upset over his also killing one of their generals in violation of their sovereignty.
Barkley Rosser
Quite frankly I would be fine with Russia replacing the US in Iraq. And everywhere else in the world.
Time we just had our defense forces defend the US, instead of the world.
Do we care?
Should we care?
Let Assad, Putin and Erdoğan duke it out.
“Don’t touch that tar baby.”
I have no big whoop about Russia taking over fighting ISIS. The real irony here is that given Russsi’s de facto alliance with Iran, the replacement of US forces by Russian ones means a victory for Iran over the US for influence in Iraq. Supposedly killing Soleimani was partly to bring about a US victory in that copmetition, but this is the final bottom line on how Trump’s policy is ultimatel backfiring to a defeat, although his followers will probably not be told this and will continue to view killing Soleimani as something wonderful, even as they also continue to think getting out of the nuclear deal with Iran was wonderful becaause Fox News says so.
To make this even worse, there are now reports that the original attack that killed an American contractor and set all this off may not have come from a Shia milita after all but from ISIS/ISIL.Daesh, with the knowledge of this possibly behind the sudden and still musterious firing in mid-January of WH NSC Russia expert freshly appointed Andrew Peek, who was walked out like Vindman, with him only freshly appointed after Fiona Hill annd the Tim Morrioson resigned.
I think we can all agree that Trump’s foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster on everything he has touched, but most voters do not care with the exception of tearing up the Iran deal and the typical GOP voter thinks that was a good thing while the Democrats think it was not. The only people who care about the US getting kicked out of Iraq are Republicans and we know how much backbone they have when it comes to criticizing Trump
The man mysteriously fired is Andrew Peek, not “Joe” Peek.
There is a big problems with “experts” in NSC — often they represent interests of the particular agency, or a think tank, not that of the country.
Look at former NSC staffer Fiona Hill. She can be called “threat inflation” specialist.
NSC tries to usurp the role of the State Department and overly militarize the USA foreign policy, while having much lower class specialists. It is a kind of CIA backdoor into defining the USA foreign policy.
I would advocate creating “shadow NSC” by the party who is in opposition, so that it can somehow provide countervailing opinions. But with both parties being now war parties, this is no that effective.
Cutting NSC staff to the bones, so that such second rate personalities like Fiona Hill and Vindman are automatically excluded might also help a little bit.
The size above a dozen or two is probably excessive, as like any bureaucracy, it will try to control the President, not so much help him/her.
(https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20160908/105276/HHRG-114-FA00-Transcript-20160908.pdf ):
likbez:
Where did you serve? In the military, I mean. Did you do anything in the military or in public service? Explain to me what you did. please.
“Cutting NSC staff to the bones, so that such second rate personalities like Fiona Hill and Vindman are automatically excluded might also help a little bit. ” ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Run,
> Where did you serve? In the military, I mean. Did you do anything in the military or in public service? Explain to me what you did. please.
Please stop this militaristic nonsense. This is a cheap and dirty trick.
FYI there is not much valor to serve in the military to conquer foreign nations for oil companies (Vindman served in Iraq war) . Only when you are defending your country.
likbez:
There is a big problem with people like you who want to critique the Vindmans and Hills who confronted a mobster like trump who has never done a thing in his life on his own, earned it, or squeezed the trigger. He is a pimp, a mobster, who would pee his pants if confronted. Now come on, what makes you an expert? Prior service in a foreign capacity, overseas military background, commercial foreign endeavors, etc. or did you just read a book, Breibart, Epoch, etc.? Hill and Vindman caught the mobster extorting a nation and are the pawns in this crime by trump as supported by Republican Senators.
I would wonder what the mobster in chief has on the pansy Graham. If he got any more nervous, he would burst into tears.
The big problem are people like you who are intent on changing the dialogue away from trump to the pawns who did what they had to do and knew the consequences if they told on trump. Without them, trump might have escaped notice. And the other pansy rand wonders why the whistle-blower needs protection from people like himself, graham, and the other brown shirts in the Senate?
It defies description how anyone can think the CIC of the most powerful military in the world does not need military advisors. This would be true of every President, but with this schmuck in the WH it is imperative.
Frightening to see the defenses of his actions. One is worse than the next.
likbez,
Trump may be CIC, but he got out of going to Vietnam by using phony bone spurs, and he is so ignorant he believes Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election.
OTOH, Vindman has a purple heart for getting blown up in Iraq and has advanced degrees in foreign policy.