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Cancel the agreement … Iraq is moving towards the unknown

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In light of the recent security developments in Baghdad, the Iraqi Council of Representatives is scheduled to hold an emergency session on Sunday to discuss the issue of “violating the sovereignty of Iraq” and the attack launched by the United States of America at dawn on Friday January 3 this year, which resulted in the killing of the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization organization , Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, and a number of Iranian leaders and leaders of the popular crowd on the road to Baghdad International Airport.

Arab media have published a copy of the draft of the resolution proposed for discussion, and then voting on it at the Iraqi parliament session scheduled for today in the capital Baghdad.

In the draft of decision to be voted upon, it says: “The House of Representatives decided in its twenty-eighth session, held on 5/1/2020 of the first legislative term, the second legislative year / fourth parliamentary session, and according to the provisions of Articles (59 / second), (1) and (109) From the constitution, and based on the national and supervisory duty of the House of Representatives as a representative of the Iraqi people with all its components, and in the interest of the safety and sovereignty of Iraq over its lands and people, and in accordance with the powers granted to it according to the constitution, issue the following decision :
1- Obliging the Iraqi government to cancel the request for assistance submitted by it to the international coalition to fight ISIS for the year 2016, in order to end military and war operations in Iraq, since the victory has been achieved, and the Iraqi government should work to end the presence of any foreign forces on Iraq’s territory, and prevent it from using the Iraqi airspace for any reason during the period of (..).

2- The Iraqi government, represented by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, must announce the numbers of foreign technicians and trainers that need them, their whereabouts, tasks, and the duration of their contracts.

3- The Iraqi government, represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, should go to the United Nations and the International Security Council and submit a complaint against the United States of America for its serious violations and breaches of the sovereignty and security of Iraq.

4- This decision is implemented from the date of voting on it.
Observers of the Iraqi issue see , from a legal point of view, that the parliament has no right to cancel the security agreement without a decision by the cabinet, and then referred to the parliament for approval, and since the current government is a caretaker government, it is not entitled to issue such a law, and It means that any decision taken today by the House of Representatives is null and void, just as it is very difficult to cancel the agreement according to its texts (the final provisions thereof) except after a prior written notification a year before that by one of its parties.
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Observers believe that there are many consequences for any decision to cancel this agreement, from many aspects. On the economic level, Iraq owes a very large amount of approximately 140 billion dollars and accumulated interest, which may lead to the seizure of Iraqi funds for years, which may expose the Iraqi economy to a strong jolt, with repercussions for the Iraqi dinar, as it is possible that the price of the US dollar will reach nearly 3,000 thousand Iraqi dinars.

It is useful to note here, that the agreement generates approximately 18 to 20 billion US dollars annually in the Iraqi economy, and this is also beneficial to the Iranian economy, as it is through these funds that Iraq buys what it needs of food and construction goods, electricity and natural gas from Iran, and in the event of cancellation , this agreement would deprive Iran of that money, which it desperately needs due to the severe economic sanctions imposed on it by the US administration.

Politically, the United States of America contributed to removing Iraq from the circle of Chapter Seven sanctions within the framework of the United Nations Charter. In the event that the agreement is canceled, it is possible to re-impose sanctions on Iraq. As for the military and security, the United States of America greatly affects Iraqi air sovereignty, just as the F16 aircraft system imported by Iraq since 2009, and American Brahman tanks are technically maintained in coordination with American trainers in Iraq. The abolition of the agreement means the exit of NATO from Iraq, and Iraq becomes without any back in the face of military and security challenges, and Western diplomatic missions become without the cover of NATO and the international alliance, i.e., in simple terms, to make Iraq like Somalia .

Therefore, those who follow Iraqi affairs believe that canceling the agreement in this sensitive regional and international circumstance means that Iran’s will – which is pushing in this direction – has triumphed over the United States of America, which is rejected by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which Trump rejects, especially as it is about to draw a new policy about Iraq, one of its features is that the state sponsoring it, which is the United States of America, will not leave it again to the influential country, Iran.

The bottom line is that canceling the agreement means that Iraq will become an open country in political, militarily, economic and security terms, and at any moment subject to collapse, does this satisfy the ambition of those who are pushing to cancel the agreement?!!
Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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If you want to put pressure on the Iraqi Government we should be flooding the country with news of how Iran has taken over their Sovereign Country and turned it into a satellite puppet sunburb of Tehran.  The GOI has been taken over by the Iranian crooks and they will use the people and the oil resources anyway they want.  Here’s a hint for the people of Iraq.  Just look at how the people of Iran have not prospered the past 40 years.  Throw the Iranian puppets out and embrace what the USA can do for you.  Look at South Korea, Germany, Japan as examples of countries who got with the program.  Oh btw, an RV/RI won’t hurt either. It’s not going to happen with 100k Iranian militia’s running around and a Government which takes its commands from Tehran,  just my opinion.  

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Thank you Laid Back for the articles the last few pages.  I don’t know who gave all the reds but I evened that out some.  Geez, a person goes to great lengths to share what he’s reading and gets a red for his efforts. Immature behavior. .  

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23 hours ago, Pitcher said:

If you want to put pressure on the Iraqi Government we should be flooding the country with news of how Iran has taken over their Sovereign Country and turned it into a satellite puppet sunburb of Tehran.  The GOI has been taken over by the Iranian crooks and they will use the people and the oil resources anyway they want.  Here’s a hint for the people of Iraq.  Just look at how the people of Iran have not prospered the past 40 years.  Throw the Iranian puppets out and embrace what the USA can do for you.  Look at South Korea, Germany, Japan as examples of countries who got with the program.  Oh btw, an RV/RI won’t hurt either. It’s not going to happen with 100k Iranian militia’s running around and a Government which takes its commands from Tehran,  just my opinion.  

Well said my friend, 

The only way Iraq will succeed is without Iranian interventionism.

23 hours ago, Pitcher said:

Thank you Laid Back for the articles the last few pages.  I don’t know who gave all the reds but I evened that out some.  Geez, a person goes to great lengths to share what he’s reading and gets a red for his efforts. Immature behavior. .  

Thank you Pitcher for all the info you bring to DV.

I appreciate you evened out 👍🏼+++

22 hours ago, dinarham said:

  It is hard to believe that Trump is surprised at the blowback regarding the killing of Solomaini , knowing that it would precipitate a showdown   with Iran . 

I don’t believe Trump is surprised at the blowback. He knew the implications of the attack. Just my opinion. 

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Scenarios awaiting Iraq if foreign forces are removed from its territory.

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In an extraordinary session held by the Iraqi Council of Representatives, last Sunday, with the participation of the outgoing Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, the representatives who are present and belonging to only one political spectrum voted on a decision requiring the Iraqi government to cancel the request for assistance to the “International Alliance” to fight the terrorist organization ISIS , and to end the foreign military presence in Iraq, and to prevent the use of its airspace, as well as to file a formal complaint to the international Security Council and the United Nations against Washington, against the background of recent attacks in the cities of Al-Qaim and Baghdad, which resulted in the killing of the Iranian commander of the “Quds Force” Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, Deputy Leader of the Popular Mobilization Factions.

This decision angered US President Donald Trump, who on Monday night threatened to impose “severe sanctions” on Iraq if American forces were forced to leave its territory, hours after the Iraqi parliament asked the government to “end the presence” of foreign forces in the country.

“If they really asked us to leave (…), we would impose sanctions on them they had not seen before,” Trump said on the Air Force One presidential plane back to Washington after a two-week vacation in Florida. He pointed out that these sanctions, which he threatened to impose on Iraq, would make those imposed on Iran insignificant compared to them.
“We have an exceptionally expensive air base there … It has cost billions of dollars to build it, and we will not leave if they do not make up for us,” he added.

It was not an exceptional session only in terms of the decisions taken by that great political spectrum, taking advantage of the absence of the political spectrums that boycotted the parliament’s session, had they not boycotted the session, and the draft resolution was presented to a vote , failure would have been its fate, but it was exceptional also when Adil Abdul Mahdi , the resigned Iraqi Prime Minister , ignored the important questions that the Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Al-Halbousi, addressed to him, as if nothing had happened, and in order not to deviate from the goal of the session.

The exit of the American forces from Iraq is a strategic gain for this political spectrum, this spectrum was – and still is – accusing the United States of supporting the protest movement that erupted in the beginning of last October, and spread to most of the provinces of Iraq, starting with the capital Baghdad and the provinces of the Central Euphrates and reaching the province Basra in southern Iraq, but perhaps some or most of the supporters of that political spectrum have been forgotten that the reason for these protests was not due to the American presence in Iraq, but rather to their wrong practices in governing Iraq!

This spectrum looks at the American presence as a source of threat to its interests in Iraq, as it is from time to time that its military wing attacks the American interests “diplomatic mission, military bases” in Iraq, and because Washington does not want a military escalation with that spectrum and its military wing , it was constantly sending warning messages not to repeat the attacks.

But those messages were misunderstood , and they continued their military operations until they were ordered to bomb the Kiwan base, wounding a number of American soldiers, and the death of a civilian contractor, who was responsible for securing Iraqi oil transport lines from Kirkuk Governorate. Washington responded to by targeting the headquarters of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades in the Al-Qa’im region in Anbar, and in the Syrian depth, the response to the targeting was the storming of supporters of the Iraqi factions affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Organization, the outer wall of the headquarters of the fortified American embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad for the first time since its construction after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 , and they raised the flags of «Hezbollah Iraq» on the walls, then the strikes of American Drones came to kill the commander of the «Quds Force» Soleimani, in charge of the militia, who was coming from a business trip, from Syria and Lebanon. Instead of the response to the assassination of Soleimani coming from Iran, it came from Iraq !!
Politically : the Iraqi parliament voted on the exit of US forces from Iraq.
Militarily : Re-targeting the American embassy in Baghdad and the American military bases deployed in Iraq.

But the question that arises in this context: What are the consequences of the decision to expel US forces from Iraq?
Militarily: According to special information obtained by the Raabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies, the United States of America withdrew its forces from its bases in Balad, Al-Qiyara and Al-Muthanna Airport, “Baghdad International Airport, the Military Side,” as they are loose bases that are easy to target, but their importance lies in providing logistical support to the Iraqi Air Force, and some Iraqi military sectors in the field of training and coordination. These forces are scheduled to move to Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the State of Qatar.

It is useful to note here that these bases during their operation, and with the support of the United States of America constitute 40% of the combat power, and there is no doubt that after the departure of the American forces, that the fighting capacity of the Iraqi security forces will diminish to 20%, and over time, will continue to diminish until it reaches zero centigrade.
Economically : Donald Trump threatened to impose harsh sanctions on Iraq if American forces were forced to leave, and immediately this political statement greatly affected the Iraqi dinar exchange rate against the US dollar, and harsh penalties can be applied against Iraq, Iraq for the first time since Saddam’s regime was punished on the occupation of Kuwait, it now produces 4 million barrels of oil per day, and is granted great facilities, all of which may disappear, and Iraq will return to a poor besieged country, and chaos will prevail, as a result of his involvement in confronting Washington in line with Iran.

At a time when Baghdad is losing its relationship with its main protector, Tehran, otherwise, has begun negotiations with Washington in the hope of ending the economic blockade.

The division of the three political spectrums around the decision of the Iraqi parliament, means that Iraq is living an identity crisis and a geographical crisis, and with this division, voices in the East and West began to ask: Is Iraq on the way to sectarian and ethnic division?

The three political spectrum, especially the great political spectrum, must magnify Iraq’s interests, and it must realize deeply that the United States of America is a superpower not dealing with the logic of emotions, but with a logic governed by rational options. Iran, despite the painful blow it received with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani However, until this moment, rationality has prevailed in dealing with the United States of America, because it is very deeply aware that it is not easy to confront the United States directly.

Therefore, the Iraqi Studies Unit in Rawabet Center believes , that Iraq will lose a lot if that political spectrum continues on its stance towards the United States of America, and the stage of retreat begins that may affect the present and future of Iraq .

Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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The tensions between Tehran and America are an escalating step in a dangerous economic region.

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Researcher Shatha Khalil *
Despite Iran ‘s circumvention on US sanctions, by all means, whether by concluding declared and unannounced bilateral and collective agreements, or reviving the role of intermediaries who buy Iranian oil locally, and then re-sell it in global markets under the guise of being from the Iranian private sector and not affiliated with the government. ” And, “Bursa” was established in the year 2012, and it can be used in the future for the fraud operations that the Iranian regime is planning to undertake, and some aspects of trade in national currencies, to escape the pressures of the dollar and bank transfers in it, the Iranian economy remains weak, fragile and vulnerable to collapse: This is under the ceiling of the “resisting economy” established by the leadership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei years ago.

It is included within the economic plans of the government, which the government and the people have, to create the economic development.
As the resisting economy was made by relying on national capabilities and settling the citizens ’problems … The question that arises now : a resisting economy against whom?
If Iran accepts the terms of negotiating regarding its nuclear program with a group of (5 + 1), to announce that its relationship with the West has started a new page, and has entered into economic deals with Italy, France and Germany that amounted to billions of dollars, and allowed the return of some foreign companies to work on its soil.

Does Iran have resistance to the western economy, and it hopes its investments in the coming period and is waiting for its citizens to be brought in to revive tourism in it?

However, expectations have changed completely …after the assassination of the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Qassem Soleimani, at the beginning of 2020, it may not be the same as before in 2019.

Before the killing of Soleimani, first Vice President, Yitzhak Jahangiri, had stated that the country’s total revenues during the past nine months of the current Iranian year, which began on March 21, amounted to $ 70 billion, through trade with the world, despite the current US sanctions conditions and, as quoted him by “Tasnim International News Agency,” expecting the volume of trade exchange to reach $ 100 billion by the end of the Iranian year on March 20, 2020.
However, his expectations today are linked to the direction of the development of events after the assassination of Soleimani, and that the tensions between Washington and Tehran and their allies, especially in Iraq, are entering a dramatic and dangerous escalation of violence in a region vital to the global economy, in this region extending from Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz through Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, more than a quarter of the world’s daily oil consumption is produced and exported.

Since violence and the fear and its consequences constitute the most important factors determining the course of the economy’s development and its prospects, the coming days will be disastrous for the economies of the concerned countries and the world economy alike, in the event of exchange of military strikes between the United States and Iran, and in particular the American threat from President Donald Trump, who announced that the United States has identified 52 Iranian vital sites that will strike it if Tehran attacks any Americans or any American assets or its interests, which will be its stage in the Gulf countries and Iraq, especially the countries that depend in their economy to export oil almost completely, such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and those that are heavily dependent on operating their industry like China, India, Japan and other Asian countries, and which will surely search for strategic alternatives like LNG and shale derivatives that the United States has begun exporting to the European Union, India and China.

The higher the price of oil, the more the United States can compete in the market, by increasing its production of high-cost shale oil compared to the oil of Arab countries.

It is worth mentioning here, that American oil production recently reached record levels of about 13 million barrels per day, along with reserves amounting to about 500 million barrels, which means to enhance Washington’s ability to bridge any shortfall in the global market, not only for weeks, but for several months..
This is in line with President Trump’s relentless pursuit to enhance the role of fossil energy in the American economy, and to increase exports from it to the European and Asian markets.

With the continued suspension of Iranian and Venezuelan oil pumping, Washington’s chances are stronger than ever, on the way to occupying the position of the strongest player in the traditional energy market.

In the context of fears, anxiety has quickly reached Wall Street and other global markets where stock markets have fallen for fear of high energy prices, and with them costs of production and transportation, which means declining global trade, as well as the decline of US, European and Japanese bonds, and billions of dollars fled to safe havens like gold and other precious values, as for oil prices, it recorded an increase that reached more than three dollars a barrel of Brent crude, whose price jumped to about 70 dollars.

Iraq the most difficult confrontation:
In Iraq, which has become one of the most important oil-exporting countries, American oil workers and experts began to leave Iraqi territory, after the American State Department called on its citizens on January 3, 2020 to leave Iraq immediately, noting the stress of Iraqi authorities to continue pumping oil in an ordinary way and the continuous flight traffic at Baghdad International Airport does not reduce the negative repercussions of such a step .
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As for the Arab Gulf states, headed by Saudi Arabia, there are increasing fears that vital oil wells and installations will be hit by military strikes similar to the ones that hit Saudi Aramco in September 2019, and the strike that hit the Saudi company at that time suspended half of Saudi oil production for several weeks, the current production rate for Riyadh is about 10 million barrels per day.

Also, tensions raise the costs of transportation and insurance, in a way that has negative effects on the growth of the global economy, especially on China and the emerging industrial countries that depend on importing oil from the Middle East. In Germany, experts at major economic institutes warned of additional pressures on the economy and German companies that depend on export significantly.

Strait of Hormuz:
With the escalation of geopolitical and military tensions in the Gulf region, the talk about the security of the Strait of Hormuz is back , this time in a more difficult military situation, which restricts the movement of oil tankers, whether those declared or the secret hidden from the systems tracking the trajectory of international ships.

This prompted Britain to announce that its navy would begin escorting ships raising the British flag across the Strait of Hormuz, to provide protection for tensions between Washington and Tehran, knowing that London had to accompany its ships through the most important waterway in the world for oil shipments for a period of time last year, after the control of Iranian commandos on an oil tanker raising the British flag in the strait, after British forces detained an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, accusing it of violating the sanctions imposed on Syria.

There is no doubt that the tension in the Gulf between America and Iran has now entered a new stage whose scenarios cannot be predicted, according to observers, especially if it took an offensive and revenge path between the two parties, which would cause Iran huge economic losses, and the economies of the region and the world would not be immune to its direct and indirect cruel results , especially in the event that the confrontation becomes open without restrictions.

We conclude that the political tensions between Washington and Tehran have made the economic climate in all of the Middle East region, especially in Iraq, Iran and the Arab Gulf states dark, pessimistic and unclear.

Economic Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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Iran and drink the second poison cup.

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Muammar Faisal Khouli
It was not surprising that the Iranian media escalation against the background of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was much stronger than its military response to the two American bases in Iraq.

This response means that Iran is still very rational and prudent in its external behavior in dealing with Western countries, particularly the United States of America, especially if it comes to carrying out any direct military action.

Yes, the size of the Iranian loss of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani is very large, which it has not suffered since the end of its war with Iraq in 1988, but the Iranian political regime is not that naive in taking a provocative military move that would cause severe embarrassment to the United States of America, which may open the door of military confrontation widely.

The Iranian political regime may bitterly accept to lose that a military leader who was able to establish Iranian influence in several Arab capitals, instead of losing the rule of the Iranian state, because any direct military confrontation whose results may be known in advance due to the difference in military, economic and technical capabilities between the United States of America And Iran.

So … Tehran’s fear of military confrontation with Washington prompted it to do so very modest attack, because its political system is deeply aware of the historical and contemporary strength of the United States of America.

In contemporary history, no country has entered into a war or conflict against the United States of America except that it was defeated and disintegrated. The Japanese aggression on the American Pearl Harbor base in Huawei and the killing of 2,400 people cost the occupation of Japan in August 1945 and the establishment of American military bases there. The Iranian political system, experiencing the American-Soviet conflict, which ended in its disintegration into fifteen republics in 1991. Iran’s current and defiant power of the United States of America!! If compared with the historical strength of Japan and the Soviet Union, it is negligible!! As for the contemporary strength of the United States of America is clear and does not need an evidence.

In an attempt by Iran to absorb the criticism leveled against it, Ali Haji Zadeh, the commander of the Air Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said that we could have “killed 500 American soldiers at Ein al-Assad base.”
We ask: What prevented you from doing this? Are human values ?! Which you buried when you killed and displaced millions of people from Iraq and Syria? !!

Or is the role of the Revolutionary Guards ended at this level, after which their allies would take over in the Levant’s environment, and this is what Haji Zadeh implicitly indicated by saying: “The targeting of Iran to one of the most important American bases in the region is the beginning of a larger process that will continue in the whole region, and that the next steps will be taken by what he called “the resistance front.”

The modest Iranian response to US military bases can be explained that it does not rise to the level of revenge for a military commander with the weight of Qassem Soleimani, who was described by the Western media as the second most powerful figure in the structure of Iranian rule after the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the response that seemed to be an attempt by Iran to save Its face and an attempt to alleviate the crisis and appease local voices in it that call for revenge and show the strength of Iran’s allies in the region.

Accordingly, a modest military response can be interpreted, based on three assumptions, as follows:
The first: It says that Qasim Soleimani, after increasing his internal influence by expanding his popularity in Iran, and at external level by having an external network of influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, he became a threat to religious symbols such as Ali Khamenei, and the military as Hussein Salami, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, so getting rid of him became an imperative necessity, but In a way that preserves the Iranian political system, its stability, increasing popularity, and showing Soleimani as a national hero.

Whether the attempt to storm the American embassy was the idea of Soleimani that precipitated his assassination, or from the idea of the Iranian leadership in order to get rid of him, this matter means nothing g for the Americans who viewed the attempt to storm as a qualitative development in changing the rules of engagement with Iran, and that it crossed the red lines, and underestimating American power , so Iran had to pay the price of that folly, and perhaps this price won the admiration of the Iranian leadership , Khamenei- Salami equation, by assassinating Soleimani, by getting rid of a potential internal enemy !!

As for the second assumption : It says that Iran preferred revenge politically, not militarily, from the United States of America, by investing Iran’s most powerful political allies in the country. It also includes a mixture of threats and promises aimed at Iraqi politicians to force them to remove American forces from the country.

Although this strategy is being implemented now, Iran can increase its pressure to ensure the Iraqi government’s commitment to removing US forces from the country.

Iran’s allies are already in a good position for such an option, and the sudden rise of the anti-American anger caused by the “attack against Soleimani and al-Muhandis – along with Iran’s strong influence in the Iraqi media market – will further enhance such an option.

As for the third assumption: which says that Iran cannot sacrifice its historical investments in Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Sana’a, and enters into direct war with the United States of America, that is why the Iranian bombing came to show Iran’s resolve and strength, but it was not determined to inflict material and human losses, in order to avoid the strong reaction from the USA, which will be in the form of drinking a second poison cup by Iran.
The near future , or even in intermediate one , is the one who will answer any assumptions that the Iranian leadership have adopted – even if I adopt the third assumption – in its modest response to the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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The consequences of the American withdrawal from Iraq.

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The assassination of Qasim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis fueled the tense relations between Iraq and the United States to a boiling point. On January 5 this year, the Iraqi parliament voted in an extraordinary session in the presence of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on a decision that obliges the government to work to end the request for assistance submitted from it to the international coalition led by Washington, and to end any presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil.

For its part, the US State Department expressed “disappointment” with this decision, calling on the Iraqi authorities to reconsider it, and Washington, which intends to keep its forces in Iraq, announced that it is studying economic sanctions against Iraq.

And if the Trump administration imposes economic sanctions, this means undermining the Iraqi economy.

We ask here… What are the economic, military and political consequences that would arise if the American forces withdrew from Iraq?

In this context, the New York Times published a report by Alyssa Robin, director of her office in Baghdad, in which she confirmed that Iraq is between the two parties, in light of the escalation of tension between the United States and Iran, which reached its climax after the assassination of the Iranian Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani, in a American drone attack last week near Baghdad International Airport.

The author confirmed the Iraqi parliament’s vote after the incident of Soleimani’s death in favor of the evacuation of the American forces, while a message came from Tehran’s allies in Baghdad, some Iraqi officials believe that it will be a disaster for Iraq in all respects, particularly the economic and security front, foremost of which is the return of the terrorist organization, ISIS.

And she indicates that the economic sanctions that Trump promises to impose on Baghdad, in the event of the evacuation of American forces, as Tehran and its followers want in Iraq, will not affect Iraq alone, but its effects will extend to Iran as well, given the intertwined economy of the two countries, but rather the benefit that Tehran gets more than Baghdad.

And although the newspaper does not focus on this dimension, Iran’s benefit from the American presence in Iraq was mainly when it toppled the Saddam Hussein regime, which was a thorn in the throat of the “Guardian Jurist” regime, and brought Tehran allies to rule in Baghdad, and it is notable at the time that Washington justified the invasion of Iraq under the false claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear program, which it knew was not true, while Tehran was at the time developing its nuclear program!
The author says that prominent Iraqi officials, diplomats and researchers have stated that the evacuation of American forces will force Iraq to fall into the arms of Iran, which would deprive it of US dollars and isolate it from the West.

And she points out that Trump’s sanctions may deprive Iraq from the main source that feeds it in dollars, due to the assumption of freezing its account with the US Federal Reserve in New York.

She notes that Iraq’s revenues from oil sales are deposited in that bank, and the government has used to the withdrawal from it to pay employee salaries and pay its other contractual obligations.

The author also states that the United States may also resort to canceling exemptions that allow Iraq to buy Iranian gas, which the state depends on for operating electricity generators in the south, and in providing at least 35% of the energy supplies needed for the whole country, which may fuel the turmoil in the south once Temperatures rise, which will lead to a decrease in electricity supplies, as happened in 2018.

Imposing the embargo on Iraqi oil will constitute a painful blow to the country, especially since the proceeds from oil exports are estimated at about 90% of revenues of annual budgets, noting Iraq still suffers from 40 years of continuous wars, International blockade and terrorism and the worst phenomena of public corruption and unemployment.

The embargo will leave its mark on Iraqi oil exports, which will mean a decline in Iraqi exports about 3.2 million barrels per day, as well as the embargo on Iraq and the intensification of battles on its lands will mean the withdrawal of oil companies operating there currently, and indeed, some American operating companies have started withdrawing their foreign employees, such as « Exxon Mobil »from the south and“ Chevron ”from the north, which will delay the development of Iraq’s production capacity, currently amounting to about 5 million barrels per day (the second largest producer in the Organization of« OPEC »).

In addition to Iraq’s geostrategic and political value, this country is today considered one of the largest oil exporting countries in the world, with huge reserves in the long run. If the presence of United States remains the same, the economies of the USA and Iraq and the global economy will reap these benefits together, but if the US leaves, Iran will actually increase its control over the huge energy and financial resources, and prevent its use in Iraqi development projects in order to avoid sanctions and largely support its ambitions of hegemony.

As for the military, it is necessary for the United States to maintain a military presence in Iraq, however modest, to ensure the defeat of the terrorist organization ISIS.

On the other hand, if the killing of Soleimani leads to the withdrawal of the American forces involved in local operations against the organization, this would constitute a major blow to the war on terror, even after the terrorist ISIS lost the last strongholds of its alleged caliphate in March 2019, it was still able to carry out 867 terrorist operations inside Iraq alone during the remained period of the year, and the number and intensity of these attacks will undoubtedly increase in the absence of the military pressure exerted by the American and allied forces, and the ongoing operations against the strongholds in which the organization operates in equal measure in Syria will also be mortally undermined, UN estimates that ISIS still has a reserve of $ 300 million to support its terrorist campaign, while Kurdish officials point out that today, the organization has reassembled its ranks in Iraq equipped with “better techniques and methods.”

That is why Ahmed Al-Masari, the deputy in the Iraqi parliament and a leader in the Salvation and Development Front led by Osama Najafi, demanded the American administration not to withdraw its forces from Iraq, especially the Sunni cities and governorates occupied by ISIS, and he said, “We as Sunni blocs did not vote in Parliament to remove foreign forces and we will stand against it today and tomorrow due to the real concerns that ISIS will return to our Sunni cities in the event of the Americans withdrawing, because we still need their military and intelligence support, and because ISIS fighters still pose a threat to the security of our liberated areas.

He added: “The American side has the technological capability to confront the sleeper cells of the ISIS organization, which is superior to the Iraqi military forces.”

He added, “If the political partners in the country succeed in removing the American forces, the Sunni Arabs have one option to protect themselves and their regions, which is the application of the federal system, in order to seek international support and provide a new ally and resort to it a constitutional and legitimate right to protect the component and liberated cities, and to face challenges whether the threat from ISIS or the incursion of armed militias loyal to Iran ».

He emphasized that “the image of the Americans in the minds of the Sunni people as occupying forces is completely different. They now welcome them and view them as a true supporter and a strong friend in the face of Iranian influence and armed terrorist organizations.”

And that “the areas destroyed by the war cannot be reconstructed and defended from any potential evil, as well as bringing investment projects, ending unemployment and providing job and job opportunities for unemployed youth, except by strengthening the relationship with the American side, we need their help.”

He explained: «The Iraqi government does not have the right to demand the United States of America to withdraw from Iraq, because it is a caretaker government that has no authority, and that these forces came at the time of a government that was fully completed, but in the event of early elections resulting in a parliament that creates a new government, that the elected government will study where is the interest of Iraq, is it in the withdrawal of Americans or their stay?”

He concluded, “It is shameful for the ruling political class that is now calling for the departure of the American forces at a time when these people are satisfied with the Americans when they were actual occupiers of the country.”

Politically, if American forces remain in Iraq, it will greatly enhance the position of the United States in this country , and contribute to countering the harmful influence of Iran throughout the region, but its exit means that Iraq will be in danger of slipping back into the devastating isolation that it previously lived, knowing that it would then be less able to resist Iran’s fierce politics.

In fact, most Iraqis are wary of this idea, and it is true, and the best evidence for this is the hundreds of thousands of anti-Iran demonstrators who have gone to the Iraqi streets in recent months, especially in Shiite areas, they prefer a largely an Iraq that is sovereign, peaceful, pluralistic and fully integrated into the international community, and the continued American diplomatic and military presence would help to enhance those hopes.

As such, it is reasonable for Washington to expect the Iraqi government to put forward conditions to make this presence beneficial to both parties.

There is a direct link between Soleimani’s assassination and the established priority in his policy of forcing the United States to get out of Iraq, and if Washington withdrew now, Soleimani would have accomplished by his assassination what he tried in vain to achieve in his life, and this matter will be much more than a symbolic and moral failure, but rather it will be a great political defeat for Washington, and a victory for Iran, and Iraq awaits a very dangerous fate, but if American leaders maintain their position in Iraq, they will confirm the failure of Soleimani’s plans, which would erode Iran’s international standing, strengthen Washington’s position, and maintain the stability of Iraq at the same time.

Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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On 1/13/2020 at 9:02 AM, Laid Back said:

Iran and drink the second poison cup

Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

 

9 hours ago, Laid Back said:

The consequences of the American withdrawal from Iraq. Iraqi Studies Unit - Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

 

Thanks for these excellent articles LaidBack....much appreciated brother...Ron :twothumbs:

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Iraqi-Chinese agreement on the scale of Washington.

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About three months before his resignation, the Prime Minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, visited China, accompanied by a delegation of ministers, governors, and advisers, in September 2019, with the aim of concluding agreements in several areas, including huge trade agreements, and other agreements included : industrial, investment, and agricultural and oil and gas exploration agreement , except for security agreements .

In his visit , Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi explained: “We belong to Asia, and we want to be part of its rise.” That is, after the passage of nearly 16 years since the end of the war in Iraq, the Mesopotamia country faces major institutional failures, most of which are directly caused by chaos which followed the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the withdrawal of the United States of America.

Abdel-Mahdi, an economist who studied in the Sorbonne, pointed out during his visit that the Chinese giant had replaced India in 2018, and then became the largest trading partner for Iraq with transactions worth more than 30 billion US dollars (25 billion euros), including bilateral exchanges, explaining that Iraq is the second largest oil exporter to China.

And the advisor of the Iraqi Prime Minister for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, announced details about the economic agreements concluded by Iraq with China, about four months ago, and they entered into force recently, including opening a bank account in China, to deposit oil revenues.
Saleh said, according to the official Iraqi news agency yesterday, that “the agreements include the exchange of oil revenues for the implementation of projects in Iraq,” noting that the Iraqi government opened a bank account in one of the Chinese banks, to deposit oil revenues of 100 thousand barrels per day, within the Chinese agreement.

The atmosphere between Washington and Baghdad seemed tense in recent days, after the Iraqi parliament voted on the fifth of January this year, to remove foreign forces from the country, which angered US President Donald Trump, who hinted to the confiscation of about $ 35 billion in the account of the Central Bank of Iraq It has in the US Federal Reserve (the central bank) as well as other harsh measures.

The tension between the United States of America and Iraq came in the wake of the assassination of the prominent Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, in a US air strike targeting him in the vicinity of Baghdad Airport, next to leaders in the popular crowd in Iraq, at the dawn of the third of this month, while Iran responded with a missile attack last Wednesday, on Two military bases host American soldiers in Anbar and Erbil, in western and northern Iraq.

Therefore, the Iraqi government is accelerating the pace of implementing broad agreements with China, especially in the field of oil export and reconstruction, in conjunction with American threats of sanctions against Baghdad “they have never seen before” if it goes ahead with its plans to remove American forces from the country, following the skirmishes between America and Iran.

And Iraq’s move to activate its agreements with China came, while prominent officials in the Iraqi financial sector recently presented a bleak picture of the country’s economy’s future, in case the American president implemented his threat to impose sanctions on Iraq, during a high-level meeting in which deputies participated in the ethnic parliament a few days ago, where All the possibilities presented were based on the assumption that the Iraqi government will continue to be subject to the Iranian point of view, in light of the burning conflict between Tehran and Washington in the region, and Iraq in particular.

And Iraqi officials have expressed in recent days their fear of an economic collapse, if Washington imposed sanctions, including freezing bank accounts in which Baghdad holds oil revenues, which constitute 90% of the state budget.

Meanwhile, the American Wall Street Journal revealed yesterday that the Trump administration is considering reducing military aid to Iraq if the Baghdad government proceeds to remove American forces from the country.
The newspaper said that the Pentagon and the Department of State discussed options for a possible cut of $ 250 million in military aid to Iraq, funds that have already been approved by Congress.

It added, that the two ministries are reviewing a wide range of other economic and military assistance, which has not yet been committed, as emails seen by the newspaper .

According to the newspaper, emails indicate that the US Department of State’s Near East Affairs office is deducting $ 250 million in aid funds under the US military financing program for Iraq for the current fiscal year.

On January 7, the Washington Post said that the US administration had begun to formulate possible sanctions against Iraq in the event of the expulsion of US forces.

Followers of the Iraqi issue see, “The ongoing cooperation with China comes within the collision of the Iraqi government with the American administration, which comes within the framework of satisfying Iran, but China will exploit the resources of Iraq in an obscene manner, and will take over Iraqi oil, and this is not what the American administration will allow.”

America has largely controlled the joints of the Iraqi economy since the occupation of the country, especially oil. Among the possibilities that America may resort to is the prevention of some international companies from dealing with the Iraqi National Oil Marketing Company, which is known as the “Sumo”, a measure that has already been tested in the Iranian case, and its effect was fatal in relation to the unilateral economy, which is based on oil only, as is the case with the Iraqi economy, according to what was quoted by AFP two days ago from Iraqi sources.

Followers of Iraqi affairs believe that the Iraqi government should consider that there is a cold international conflict between the United States on the one hand, and Iran, China and Russia on the other side, before taking any step that has a fundamental impact on Iraq’s interests and stability.

Unlike strangling the sources of oil exports, US and Iraqi officials point out that the United States is studying other, less exciting options for the situation, one of which is that Washington refuses to renew the temporary exemption it granted to Iraq in 2018, which allows Baghdad to import gas from Iran to feed the devastated electricity grid, despite the American sanctions on the Iranian energy sector.

Observers of the Iraqi issue believe that replacing American interests with Chinese ones may succeed with the actual assistance of Iran, China and Russia, but the United States of America, the sponsor of the political system in post-2003 Iraq, rejects such a loss strongly, of course the American army can, in obstructing and failing Chinese projects, rather, it has the ability to even abolish the Iraqi state and hand over all things to its High Representative, such as Bremer or Zalmay Khalilzad, because Iraq may enter a new stage that is darker than it is going through now.

The United States of America has great control over the joints of the Iraqi economy since the occupation of the country, especially oil. Among the possibilities that America may resort to is to prevent some international companies from dealing with the Iraqi National Oil Marketing Company, which is known by the acronym “SOMO”, a measure that was previously It was tested in the Iranian case, and its effect was fatal in relation to the unilateral economy, which is based on oil only, as is the case of the Iraqi economy…

Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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Trade agreement with China… What is waiting for Iraq?

 

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Researcher Shatha Khalil *
Iraq lives in an embarrassing economic situation, after emerging from its violent war against the terrorist organization ISIS, and what has been left by these wars from the displacement and destruction of the infrastructure, as it drained the country’s material capabilities, which need comprehensive reconstruction, in light of a federal budget that suffers from deficit and debt accumulated in trillions of dinars .

The Iraqi government took a step towards reform by signing a comprehensive trade agreement with the Chinese government on September 23, 2019, in Beijing, representing a new economic stage in the reconstruction of infrastructure for Iraq, within a program that can be called oil for reconstruction, as Iraq is one of the most important sources of supplying crude oil to the People’s Republic of China, with an export between 750 thousand barrels to one million barrels per day, and the trade balance between the two countries is not less than 30 billion dollars annually thanks to the momentum of merchandise imports from China.

Here, the opinions of the observers on these agreements were divided between a supporter and a critic, which is concluded with the second largest economic country in the world, possessing advanced technology, and giant companies, which can contribute to revitalizing the economy and improving services in Iraq, but is Iraq eligible for those contracts at the time it is suffering from financial and administrative corruption and the unstable political situation, in addition to the internal crises, from the protests and the consequences of the killing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander, Qassem Soleimani, on the street, and the tension that “Iraq” lives due to the “American-Iranian” conflict and the government between the loyalists to Iran and among those rejecting its presence in Iraq, and what may be caused by the international financial sanctions by the American Federal Bank .. We mentioned this in a previous article … The question that arises in this circumstance.. Is the land of Iraq fertile for the start of investments?

Some independent politicians see and confirmed that the agreement will cause a damage on Iraq and mortgage its oil for fifty years, and independent politician Laith Shubbar said, “The signing of the agreement by an resigned government and its implementation reflects the existence of suspicions of corruption.”
To get acquainted with the terms of the agreement between Iraq and China:
1. The agreement is without penal terms and falls within the friendship agreements. In the event of a dispute, to resort to the recognized international arbitration bodies.
2. The term of the agreement is 20 years.
3. The Iraq-China Fund for Reconstruction is established, supervised by the Iraqi government and a guaranty consulting firm, and is chosen by the central bank among the top five largest global companies.
4. The Chinese party guarantor of the agreement is the Chinese Insurance Corporation (SINO Shore), which is the supreme governmental organization.
5. The revenues of 100 thousand barrels per day of oil sold to China shall be seized , specifically for the two national Chinese companies (Zinhua and Sinoc) , and the revenues of this oil shall be placed in the Iraqi-Chinese fund.
6. The credit limit of Chinese banks to the Iraqi-Chinese fund is $ 10 billion, with interest subsidized by the Chinese government.
7. If the first package of projects succeeds, and Iraq desires to increase investments, the ceiling for Iraqi oil sales will be raised to 300,000 barrels per day, and China will increase the ceiling of borrowings to 30 billion dollars.
8. The amount is deposited with a bank (stk bank), then the bank transfers the account to the American Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which oversees the total Iraqi oil sales, and there is an Iraq account of sales, then the amount is transferred to a new account called the investment account
9. An account is created in the name of the debt service account (repay account) and it is allocated to support the interest rate, and its sums are deducted from the investment account.
10. The fund includes the following projects:
. Airports
. Building schools
. Paving the external roads
• Railway
• Treating the pollution of the Tigris and Euphrates and Shatt Al-Arab
.Building housing complexes
.Infrastructure projects
• Energy and desalination projects
• Other projects as requested by the Iraqi government

If the cost of one of the projects above is one billion dollars, then the amount is taken from the fund by (850 million dollars from China and 150 million dollars from Iraqi oil sales).
11. The Council of Ministers selects the above projects, and signs the contract for one time, for example: A contract is signed for building two thousand schools with an open contract called an open contract.
12. The deposit of Iraqi oil money started on 01/10/2019, and accumulated an amount of half a billion dollars so far, with China ready to deposit 10 billion dollars, and it was hoped that the first projects would be chosen these days, but turning the government into a caretaker government , stripped it of the power to sign .
13. Iraq has the right to choose international European, American companies to be partners with China, according to the type of project.

According to the China agreement:
The agreement is not without a political dimension, since China is searching for allies in the region, but the economic dimension is clear. The Chinese money is looking for its investments, and technology needs a market for its disposal, and the Iraqi side is also looking for allies who have high technological capacity, great liquidity, and countries that have a difference in the exchange rate against the dollar, which makes the value of the work greater than the paper value of domestic money.

China has great seriousness in making investments inside Iraq, for a reason that differs from the United States ’approach to Iraq, as the US’s political orientation is intended to create a state of balance in the Middle East region, whether politically or militarily, unlike China, which has commercial allies in the region, as a result of its flexible policy.

China is moving at a deliberate and steady pace to become the largest empire in the world to compete with the United States by building a new world order, and it is working through a very huge economic initiative called “Belt and Road” to expand economically and globally .

As it has spent more than three hundred billion dollars on this project, and China plans to spend an additional trillion over the next ten years.

Many are the countries that have shown a positive view towards Chinese money, and they thought that they are almost free loans, but some see it negatively , as they considered those loans very costly economically, and may work to tie these countries due to its connection to the Chinese economy, and thus mortgage their future to Chinese companies.

If we take an example of these (negative) investments in Sri Lanka, where its strategic location on the busiest shipping line between East Asia, the Middle East and Europe, it has made it a great greed for China, which lavished on this small country with about eight billion dollars at an interest rate of 6.3%, which is a percentage High compared to the World Bank, whose interest ranges between 0.25% and 3%.

As a result, China obtained 85% of the share of the “Hambantonta” strategic port with a 99-year contract, in addition to about 15,000 acres close to the port as an industrial zone.

Mombasa port is at risk:
Kenya was also forced to mortgage the largest and most important port in “Mombasa Port” for the Chinese government, due to its accumulated loans, as the debt amounted to more than $ 5.5 billion, which places Kenya among the countries most vulnerable to losing strategic assets in favor of Beijing.

Finally … the question remains for the Iraqi officials who signed these agreements, what if Iraq faltered in repaying China’s debts, does it have thoughtful plans and alternative plans to ensure the sovereignty of the country’s economic and political independence, what will it do while suffering for years from great corruption, and comes in the 12th place among the most Corruption in the world, according to the latest report of Transparency International Organization.

Therefore, everyone, especially the concerned parties, must impose security and political stability and work to achieve peace in the Iraqi street, in order to ensure a serious start in implementing the expected projects for the rise of Iraq again, otherwise such contracts will become a curse on Iraq and increase its dumping of debts and dependencies to other countries.

Economic Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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The “Sunni” region of Iraq in the context of the American-Iranian conflict.

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A few years ago, a talk of drawing a new Iraqi map was appeared that includes a clearly defined Arab Sunni region. However, this talk has been declined, and disappeared, to reappear from time to time, as required by the phase. And recently this call went up to the surface to increase the noise coming from the Iraqi arena, to raise the temperature of the scene, which is going through a critical stage under the process of push and pull between the demonstrators and the Iraqi authority, and Iran.

For the ninth day in a row, the debate continues in Iraq regarding the truth of what was reported by local media, as well as activists on networking sites, and a number of politicians, about a meeting held last week in the city of Dubai of UAE , and brought together a number of Iraqi politicians, including Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi and representatives of the Parliament and leaders of political blocs, described as representatives of “Sunni Arabs”, during which the so-called “Sunni Territory” project, which includes the northern and western provinces of the country, was re-proposed based on the fifth item of the new Iraqi constitution, which allows the province or several provinces to claim an administrative region within a federal union system , similar to the current Kurdistan region.
Although the project in its current sectarian style did not differ from a previous proposal with a sectarian dimension also adopted by various Iraqi political forces in 2013, at the height of the violations committed in the cities of north and western Iraq by the government of former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but its presentation today, and with a high level of national speech through the Iraqi uprising, with which sectarian and territorial arguments have faded, is considered by Iraqi and political officials as “deliberate and intentionally by specific parties with an interest in igniting controversy and restoring sectarian sentiment within Iraq in disgusting manner.”

Historically, the Union of Sunni Forces was one of the most advocates of establishing a “Sunni Arab region” coinciding with the Kurdistan region’s call for a referendum on independence from Iraq in 2016. This Sunni political grouping headed by Osama Najafi decided to form a leadership council for 6 Sunni provinces and coordinate positions regarding the Sunni region, amid the blessings of some Sunni politicians for the Kurdish referendum, where the former parliamentarian, Najih al-Mizan , described it as “the necessity to make use of the event and get out of the cloak of the Baghdad government,” considering that the federal government that speaks in the name of the Sunnis represents the will of the Wilyat al-Faqih and Kurdistan represents the will of a people.

The Sunni forces believed that they had an opportunity to force the government of Haider al-Abadi to accept a “Sunni region” project that would achieve autonomy for their provinces and to alleviate the grumbling of the people of the provinces about the practices of the government and popular crowd groups. The move at that time reflected a growing dependence in the Sunni community on its hopes for the development of the Kurdish-Shiite dispute to find a “new federal formula” governing the power equation, and the Sunnis would be one of the three big players, but those hopes failed with the failure of the referendum project.

Experts link the timing of talk about the “Sunni region” and what is happening in Iraq, especially at the level of protests. They consider that attempting to stimulate the Sunnis at a time , is only another card that officials in Iraq are playing in order to influence the protests and direct their rush to other issues away from focusing on the government, officials, Iran and its supporters.

Here, this “Sunni” argument, for some of the followers, does not differ from another attempt aimed at weakening the ranks of the protesters, led by the Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, even if it took a different path, through his call for a million demonstrations last Friday against the American presence in Iraq.

The project calls for annexing the northern and western provinces of the country, under the fifth item of the new Iraqi constitution, which allows the province or several governorates to claim an administrative region within the federal system of Iraq, similar to the Kurdistan region.

The Salvation Front led by Sunni politician Osama Al-Nujaifi saw in the Iraqi parliament’s decision to remove the American forces from Iraq targeting the unity of the country, confirming the old indications that the Sunnis in Iraq are mortgaging their political future with the American presence in their country.

The front, which was formed months ago, said that “what happened in the parliament session on the removal of foreign forces represents a new approach based on striking the national cohesion and trying to unilaterally take decisions that affect the whole people,” noting that “this dangerous approach will leave dire consequences” ,including the fragmentation of the country in favor of agendas that do not represent the will of the people, while calling for “reasonable people to remedy this in order to preserve the national unity that was seriously threatened.”

The Front believes that “the popular movement and the sacrifices of the youth of the demonstrations that started on the first of October and are still on the rise despite hundreds of martyrs and tens of thousands of wounded, all of that is fully consistent with the obligations of forming the Salvation and Development Front, and the solution map that I submitted early on about the resignation of the government and the implementation of the election law, and the formation of a new election commission, then a transitional government that does not participate in the upcoming elections, and its specific mission is to complete the required laws and refer those responsible for the killings that targeted demonstrators to the judiciary, then prepare for early elections under the supervision and participation of the International community after the dissolution of parliament. ”

The Front believes that “the repeated demands to establish the regions are a constitutional and legal right. As for what is rumored about calling for the formation of a Sunni region, the Front affirms that it did not raise this matter at all, because it clashes with its conviction about not contradicting the constitution, despite the Front believes that the demand to form the regions at the present time is not suitable, and there are no mechanisms that can facilitate its establishment in these circumstances, calling for “the exclusion of Iraq and its distance from any regional or international conflict, especially the American-Iranian conflict.”

Although the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Muhammad al-Halbousi, denied the existence of any such move, indicating, in statements to an Iraqi local TV station, that “there is no proposal related to forming regions”, adding, “We were and are and will continue to believe and work on the unity of Iraq, land and people.” However, the Iraqi politician from Salah al-Din Governorate, Najeh al-Mizan, told “al-Arabi Al-Jadeed ” that “the issue of establishing regions was raised in reality, but not the establishment of the Sunni region, as some promoted, but there is an idea that each of the provinces to be a region in the north and west of Iraq” that is, Nineveh is a region and Anbar is a region, and Salah al-Din is a region, and so on, and not All provinces in one region and under a sectarian address”.

Al-Mizan confirmed: “We worked on this project in previous years, as all signatures of members of the provincial councils in Salah al-Din, Nineveh, and even Diyala were signed. They were handed over to the Electoral Commission to complete the legal procedures, but the occupation of ISIS stopped this project.”
He considered that “the issue of converting provinces into provinces does not mean dividing Iraq, but rather an administrative organizational work, and this matter is stipulated in the constitution, and it has returned to the forefront at this time, after taking important decisions by political forces from one component, concerning ending the foreign existence in Iraq, without taking the opinion of the Sunni component, and even the Kurds.

He concluded by saying: “The presence of foreign forces in Iraq is very important, especially in order to maintain balance and prevent the transformation of Iraq into an Iranian province, and its presence is necessary in combating the rest of ISIS,” according to what he said.

Followers of the Iraqi issue believe that the issue of the Sunni region was raised the first time with the Iraqi parliament’s vote through its Shiite Arab members and the absence of a Sunni Kurd to remove US forces from Iraq, and that “American officials began hinting during their contacts and meetings with the Iraqis recently that American bases exist in Sunni areas , north and west of Iraq, and then they moved to the fact that the decision of the Iraqi parliament is not a complete Iraqi component, and illegal, and then went back to the scenes in 2003 and 2004 to individual dealings in Iraq on the basis of the components again, and hold meetings with Iraqi officials and politicians on the basis of sectarian representation and not their official or partisan representation . ”

Observers also see that some Sunni Arab political figures are beginning to wave that the option to go to the region is available if the alternative to the Americans is Iran, which will cause Iraq to be more isolated from its surroundings, considering that “several parties linked to Iran also have an interest in re-playing the Sectarian tendon, especially with the decline of its popularity in the south to its lowest level since the American occupation of the country.

They acknowledged that offering a Sunni region in the meantime, in addition of being a sectarian project, is “unrealistic and no appropriate at the present time, not on the one hand being ruined and destroyed cities and a third of its people displaced, but also because the regional, local and even international actors are not prepared for that, with a confused Syrian neighborhood, and Turkish debate about a safe area on its borders, as well as the weakness of the central state. They see this realization turning into a will embodied intellectually and practically by not colliding with international reality first. Second, by linking identity with the land and not with any cross-border intellectual, national, or religious factor, and accepting the secular federal model and dealing with the constitution according to the Kurdish model.
Omar Al-Naddawi, the Iraq Institute analyst at the Washington Institute, went further in his research entitled “The State of the Sunni Conflict in Iraq,” noting that Sunni Arabs lack a religious and political reference and are distinguished by the multiplicity of regional sponsors unlike the Shiites.

He points out that opportunities are declining in front of the fragmented Sunni Arab leaderships to present a unified vision of their role and future goals in Iraq, and it is time to give priority to issues related to governance and political settlement for the period after ISIS. Al-Naddawi adds, history testifies that the Arab Sunnis lack a central religious authority that can play the same role that the Najaf authority plays in the ranks of the Shiites.

Observers say. Judging the seriousness of the new – old region’s project in Iraq depends on the American position, and the extent to which the United States is prepared to deal with a development of this magnitude, especially in light of the potential for a decline in Iranian influence in the region against the background of Soleimani’s death.

Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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On 1/19/2020 at 7:44 AM, Laid Back said:

Trade agreement with China… What is waiting for Iraq?

 

Thanks Laid Back - an interesting article..!

 

2 hours ago, Laid Back said:

The “Sunni” region of Iraq in the context of the American-Iranian conflict.

 

Thanks Laid Back - this is an excellent article..!

Be Blessed my friend ..... RON

Edited by ronscarpa
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The military dimension in the context of US-Iraqi relations.

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On January 5, the Iraqi Council of Representatives voted on a resolution calling on the government to end the foreign military presence on the country’s territory and to submit a formal complaint to the Security Council against the United States for its “violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” The decision came against the backdrop of the escalating anger in Iraq due to the American raids that took place during the first days of that month, which led to the killing of the Iranian “Quds Force” commander Qassem Soleimani, the deputy head of the “Popular Mobilization Authority” Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, and other fighters from the crowd.

A step that prompted the United States to go into studying the possibility of cutting military aid to Iraq, as the United States of America is thinking to reconsider the military aid to Iraq if Baghdad decides to end the foreign presence on its soil. The American Wall Street Journal reported today, Wednesday, that the State Department and the Department of Defense discussed a reduction of military aid by about $ 250 million, and a review of other military and economic aid.

The newspaper revealed that the US Department of State’s Near East Affairs office submitted a request to the White House Administration and Budget Office, whether it could cancel the $ 100 million request for fiscal year 2021, due to the current situation in Iraq. A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a final decision had not been taken, but senior administration officials ordered to review the funds that might be held or reallocated in the event that Iraq requested the troops to leave the country.

It is useful to note here that Iraq is at the forefront of the Arab countries that receive American aid, as it obtained 5.28 billion, 89 percent of which is for the military field. In detail, Iraq has received 4.8 billion in security and military support, 369 million in humanitarian relief assistance, including 86 million in urgent food aid, while administrative expenditures have received 10 million support.

The American support for Iraq in 2001, when Saddam Hussein was still in power, did not exceed 181 thousand dollars, then in 2006, it was jumped three years after the occupation of Iraq by American forces , to 9.7 billion, the highest percentage among all Arab countries during the past years.

Observers of the Iraqi issue see that the cessation of American aid and the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq will negatively affect the interests of Iraq and is a defeat for the United States of America. With regard to aid, there are Iraqi interests in the presence of the American influence represented in the great military, security and economic aid that Iraq receives from America and its allies, as it happened that Iraq has gained $ 5.28 billion, 89% of which is for the military field. In addition, the United States is the primary source for arming the Iraqi army, the counter-terrorism service, the federal police forces, and surveillance and espionage technologies for the intelligence, and national security services.

American aid plays an important role in modifying the financial system of Iraq, by contributing to stimulating the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and allied countries to participate in reconstruction and stability programs, as well as urging large companies to invest in Iraq, so to cut US aid to Iraq will prevent this.

And if Trump implements his decision to cut US military aid to Iraq, this will have repercussions on the structure of the military system, and adversely affect the completion of this structure and its rehabilitation, after being exhausted by the battles with the terrorist organization ISIS. In light of the budget deficit and the financial and administrative corruption that hangs over the formation of the state, its frameworks and interfaces, especially that Iraq’s accounts are protected in the American Federal Bank.

As for the American withdrawal from Iraq, there is a direct link between Soleimani’s death and the established priority in his policy of forcing the United States out of Iraq. And if Washington withdrew now, Soleimani would have accomplished by his death what he unsuccessfully tried in his life, and this will be much more than a symbolic and moral failure, but rather a great political defeat for Washington and a victory for Iran. But if American leaders maintain their presence in Iraq, they will confirm the failure of the Soleimani saga, which would erode Iran’s international standing and strengthen Washington’s position at the same time.

It is no secret that Iraq suffers a lot because of Iranian interference, but relations between the United States and Iraq have proven to be not a hopeless issue. There was ample evidence of that in the past few days alone: Iraqi President Barham Salih, Speaker of Parliament Muhammad Al-Halbousi, and the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly denounced the Iranian ballistic missile attack on bases where US forces are present; and half of the entire Iraqi parliament boycotted the voting session that was held on January 5 to remove the American forces. In addition, President Saleh issued a statement in which he indicated that “the United States is our ally and Iran is our neighbor.” The leaders of the “Iraqi Kurdistan government” pledged again – publicly and privately – to cooperate with the states United states.

And if the American forces remain in Iraq, it will greatly enhance the position of the United States in those countries and contribute to countering the harmful influence of Iran throughout the region. But its exit means that Iraq will be exposed to an imminent danger of slipping back into the devastating isolation of Saddam Hussein’s days, knowing that at that time it will be less able to resist the fierce Iranian policies. In fact, most Iraqis are wary of this idea, and rightly, and the best evidence for this is the hundreds of thousands of anti-Iran demonstrators who have taken to the Iraqi streets in recent months, especially in the Shiite areas. They greatly prefer a sovereign, peaceful, pluralistic, and fully integrated Iraq to the international community. A continued American diplomatic and military presence would help advance those hopes. As such, it is reasonable for Washington to expect the Iraqi government to put forward conditions to make this presence beneficial to both parties.

In sum, the decision taken by the Iraqi parliament will mark the beginning of a process in which the US-led coalition and Iraq must reconsider the terms of cooperation between them because both sides have deep-rooted complaints. Iraq is genuinely concerned about the fact that the United States has taken military measures inside its territory in operations that have targeted Iraqi citizens and have not been authorized by the Iraqi state.

But there are many reasons for dissatisfaction on the other side as well , the United States and many key partners, such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany, have serious concerns that the Iraqi government will not be concerned about Iranian violations of Iraqi sovereignty, and about the reality of militias undermining security sector reforms and killing civilians who are grossly defenseless, as well as the lack of physical presence of an empowered government since Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi resigned amid popular protests in October.

This should be the starting point for a dialogue on establishing a new era of strategic and military partnership between the United States and Iraq based on mutual understanding. Whether Iraq falls into the hands of the terrorist organization ISIS or the militia masters of war and the proxy war between America and Iran, the result will be the same: refugees, chaos, and war.

It is true that the United States and its coalition partners are present in Iraq to defeat the terrorist organization ISIS, but another common goal that unites them with many Iraqis may provide an excellent basis for future cooperation: the steadfastness of an Iraqi state enjoying with sovereignty, stability, and democracy.

Iraqi Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies

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10 hours ago, 64jaguar said:

Thanks Laid Back, Good read. Mainly confirming things we already know but necessary to understand!

 

Go U.S. President Donald Trump

Go U.S. Military

Go Iraqi People

Go RV!! as you always say "sooner than later" :twothumbs:

You are welcome 64jaguar,

Agree with you comment (confirming things we already know but necessary to understand!).

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