Mediaboss Marketing

Missing in any debate about whether it is wise for the United States to reduce our troop numbers in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as the Trump administration has ordered, down to 2,500 Americans in each country (a number, let it be noted, that is too few to fight and too many to die), is the question members of Congress and policymakers invariably choose to duck: how did we get into the longest war in U.S. history in Afghanistan and the second-longest in Iraq?

Of course, we know, it was in response to Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida operatives hijacked four commercial U.S. airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, resulting in the deaths of nearly 3,000. None of the 19 hijackers was an Afghani their leader was Egyptian and 15 were from Saudi Arabia but Afghanistan had been the attackers' base. Congress overwhelmingly voted to give President George W. Bush, through the authorization of the use of military force, the green light to use force against those responsible for the attacks of 9/11.

By August of 2002, at a national convention of the Veterans of Foreign War, Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, after stating his conviction that Saddam Hussein "will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon," made the case for war: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." Hussein did not have then, and never would have, any "weapons of mass destruction," nor was he ever anywhere remotely close to obtaining nuclear weapons. But the U.S., just seven months later, under false pretenses and disinformation, would send 130,000 Americans into harm's way to invade Iraq.

Ignored was the doctrine stating that the U.S. should commit men and women to combat only as a last resort and only after all policy options have been exhausted and then only 1) when a vital security interest of the nation is at stake; 2) when the U.S. force employed is overwhelming and disproportionate to the force of the enemy; 3) when the mission and the military action are both understood and supported by the American people, and the mission has international support; and 4) when there is a clear and plausible exit strategy for the U.S. troops sent risking their lives.

"War," as the conservative historian Michael Barone has written, "demands equality of sacrifice." The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were the only wars longer than three months since the Mexican-American War in 1846 that the U.S. has fought without a military draft and without a tax increase. There would be no homefront shortages nor civilian sacrifice requested, only Republican administrations enacting massive tax cuts, tilted to the most advantaged, while the costs of the two wars reached an estimated $5 trillion.

In his landmark book on the American infantryman, George Wilson quoted Col. Steve Siegfried, a combat veteran: "Armies don't fight wars. Countries fight wars. I hope to hell we learned that in Vietnam a country fights a war. If it doesn't, then we shouldn't send an army."

But let's be brutally frank: we at home who did not have a loved one in uniform have borne no burden. We have paid no price. These are wars when all the sacrifice and all the suffering which have been considerable have been borne by our fellow Americans who volunteered and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. And 20 years later, there still is no "clear and plausible exit strategy" for the U.S. troops sent to risk their lives. Shame on us.

The rest is here:
Mark Shields: Afghanistan and Iraq: When will we ever learn? - Northern Virginia Daily

Earlier this year, there was much hope among politically active youth in Iraq that the fall would reignite the revolutionary fervour of last years October protests and bring large crowds back to the streets of Iraqi cities.

But October came and went and large-scale demonstrations did not take place. Baghdads Tahrir Square, once the epicentre of the protests, was cleared of tents and reopened for traffic for the first time in a year. For many, this marked the end of the October revolution, in which young people occupied squares across the central and southern provinces of Iraq to demand their rights and an overhaul of the political system.

However, it is too early to pronounce the death of the Iraqi protest movement. The violent crackdown and brutal assassinations of protesters may have succeeded in temporarily holding people off from the streets, but it is only a matter of time before Tahrir Square is occupied again and revolutionary momentum returns.

Although there had been mass demonstrations taking place regularly since at least 2011, what set the 2019 protests apart was not only their scale with more than one million Iraqis repeatedly taking to the streets in October and November 2019 but also the coherence of the popular demands.

People were not simply calling for basic services, employment and an end to corruption, as they had done before. Rather they were demanding a complete overhaul of the governance system dissolving the muhasasa taifia, which allocates government positions on the basis of religious and ethnic affiliations and which is widely seen to be the source of systemic corruption, and building a unified secular national state.

Tahrir Square, a neglected roundabout in downtown Baghdad, became the symbolic centre of this protest movement. Activists had held demonstrations there regularly since 2015, but on October 25, 2019, they managed to wrest control of the square and proceeded to occupy it for a year.

During this period, they cleaned up the areas in and around Tahrir Square, painted murals dedicated to fallen protesters and provided food, entertainment and sanitation services. In this way, they created a mini state that at once opposed everything that Iraq has become since 2003 and put forward a new vision of what it could be.

In response to the news that Tahrir Square had been cleared, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi took to social media to thank protesters for their cooperation in clearing the square and allowing a return to normalcy. But one has to wonder what normalcy the prime minister sees in the current state of affairs.

The situation in Iraq was far from normal before the protests broke out, with the country facing multiple interlinked crises. Baghdad was ranked the least liveable city in the world in 2018. This has much to do with the continuing large-scale embezzlement of reconstruction funds which has prevented the rehabilitation of infrastructure and housing damaged and destroyed in the 2003 invasion and the subsequent sectarian civil war.

Corruption has also prevented the Iraqi government from providing basic services, including electricity and clean water, in one of the worlds most resource-rich countries. In the southern city of Basra, contamination of the main water source Shat al-Arab, led to the hospitalisation of at least 118,000 people in 2018. What is more, this summer the city, along with the rest of Iraq, saw nearly 24-hour-long electricity blackouts amid record temperatures.

Infighting between Iraqi officials looking to expand their influence and self-enrichment has undermined every Iraqi government since 2003. In 2019, Health Minister Alaa Alwan, for example, submitted his resignation twice in the span of six months, citing mismanagement and blackmail in a health ministry devastated by corruption.

Government dysfunction and mismanagement have also left the Iraqi economy in tatters and completely dependent on oil revenue, which has been dwindling because of the collapse in oil prices in recent years. This has curbed job creation, which has particularly affected the young people, with some estimates putting youth unemployment as high as 46 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation only worse, putting 4.5 million Iraqis at risk of falling below the poverty line.

There has also been nothing normal about the security situation in Iraq. Barely surviving the ISILs onslaught in 2014, the country is now in the grip of various armed militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), some of which continue to undermine government efforts to take control of the security apparatus.

These groups have political wings which contested the 2018 general elections and now have representation in Parliament and therefore legislative power. Pressure from these groups reportedly led to the demotion of Lt General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, the head of the highly-regarded counterterrorism forces a move that sparked the October revolution.

Protesters have also accused these armed groups of being behind the violent attacks on protests and sit-ins in Baghdad and the southern provinces. Some 700 people have been killed and about 30,000 injured since the outbreak of the protests. None of the families of these victims can return to normal, as their demands for justice remain unaddressed.

Al-Kadhimi came to power promising reform but has so far delivered little. The main pillar of his reform plan was changing the electoral law and staging early elections, which was supposed to address one of the protesters demands.

The electoral law was indeed amended but not in a way that would actually allow for free and fair elections. Political elites continue to rework it to serve their own interests and to ensure that they can take as many seats as possible in the next elections.

So while the government may be able to pull off an early election next year, protest leaders and independent candidates will not be able to compete with the establishment parties and gain any meaningful representation in Parliament. In fact, some of them have had to flee the country because the campaign of assassinations and intimidation has escalated under al-Kadhimis watch

What is more, while it may appear that new political parties have emerged, a closer examination of their loyalties and sources of funding show their association with members of the current political elite. An example of this is Ammar al-Hakims rebranding of his Hikma movement and the emergence of associated youth groups claiming to represent protesters.

The second important pillar of the governments reform plan is the economy. Finance Minister Ali Allawi recently published a plan outlining a series of ambitious goals that must be achieved if Iraq is to overcome the current economic crisis. The five key reforms include ensuring financial stability, expanding job creation, providing basic services, improving governance and implementing legislative changes.

However, the road map does not provide any tangible plans on how these goals will be reached and it seems quite likely that the collapse of oil prices will render the government unable to pay its 4.5 million public sector employees.

While Iraqis are aware that reforms take time, having spent 17 years giving endless chances to the political elite, at the very least they want to see political will to implement reforms and actions that demonstrate change. This does not appear to be the case right now.

For this reason, it is foolish to expect that public anger will not erupt into another wave of protests. Already, protest action is taking place outside Baghdad. For example, on the same day that Tahrir Square was reopened to traffic in Baghdad, hundreds of protesters managed to hold on to Al Bahariya Square in Basra, despite being attacked with live fire and tear gas and having their tents burned down.

Protests were also held in solidarity with Basrawi demonstrators in Al Haboubi Square in Nasiriya and in the city of Samawah in Muthana province. This not only goes to show that the Iraqi protests are far from over, but also that attention should be paid to the south, which has historically been the heart of anti-government struggles in Iraq.

Ultimately, the October revolution has allowed Iraqis to imagine for the first time a country beyond the muhasasa taifia. As the late American anthropologist David Graeber argued, protests can break existing frames to create new horizons of possibility, an act that then allows a radical restructuring of the social imagination. This act is the result of at least nine years of organising in Iraq, of protests being quashed time and again only to return stronger and more determined each time. After all, revolution is not a momentous occurrence. Rather, it is a process of constant give and take that begins with imagining the world anew.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

See the article here:
There can be no going back to normal in Iraq - Al Jazeera English

Nov 25, 2020

The Netherlands is preparing to bolster itsmission inIraq by sending up to 150 additional troops to Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a vote by the Dutch Council of Ministers on Friday. The troops will be responsible for security at the Erbil airport alongside US forces. The airport is an important base for the US-led anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition.

The deployment comes as Washington continues to reduce its troops in the country and as Iraqs Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has pledged to push back against foreign influence. International support is more welcome in the north, as the coalition largely operates out of Erbil. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has celebrated a new phase of assistance from foreign governments across joint projects and beefed upmilitary infrastructure, including a 30-point reform project in collaboration with Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The US-led coalition recently shifted itsmissionin the country into an advisory role. The number of personnel will be reduced and a Military Advisor Group will be smaller in size but stocked with expert specialized capabilities to advise security staff and leaders.

KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani has spoken positively about these states remaining in the country. In October, he welcomedGermanys decision to extend its armed forces mandate in Iraq through 2022.

The Dutch will now take the helm of this mission and its new troops are likely to arrive in early January.

"ISIS is still a source of instability on the edges of Europe,"Dutch Minister Ank Bijleveld-Schouten said in a statement. "After the loss of the caliphate in March 2019, the terror organization in Iraq and Syria went into an underground guerrilla struggle. ISIS carries out dozens of attacks every month against the Iraqi government, security forces and population."

The Netherlands is part of a US-led coalition formed in 2014 against IS. The Netherlands has military personnel in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan that provide training and consultation. The government estimates its forces havetrained over 100,000Iraqi troopsand Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Last month, the Dutch government voted to continue its mission in Iraq with 60 military personnel resuming training of peshmerga fighters and Iraqi forces as well as 20 military and civilian advisers to the Iraqi government. That mission was briefly halted in April because of the coronavirus pandemicas 20 Dutch soldiers returned home. The mission has since resumed. Two weeks ago, Barzani hosted Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to discuss securityin the Kurdistan Region.

Despite Iraq declaring defeat over ISin late 2017, the extremist group continues to wage a hit-and-run war on security forces and state infrastructure. On Nov. 23,six Iraqi security personnel and three civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck a car. When a rescue team arrived, jihadisopened fire in an apparent ambush. The mayor and police forces attributed the attack to IS.

The uptick in attacks, particularly in the Diyala region northeast of Baghdad, come as the United States announcedit would withdraw around 500 troopsby January. Other countries contributing to the US-led coalition have since pulled out of Iraq entirely.

Read more:
The Netherlands to send new troops to Iraq as coalition shifts to advisory role - Al-Monitor

The US has announced it will further reduce the number of troops stationed in the Middle East, causing further consternation among analysts who worry such a move may be to the detriment of one of the regions key states, Iraq.

Acting US Secretary of Defense Christoph Miller announced on Tuesday President Donald Trumps decision to reduce US troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 each by January 15, 2021.

The impact of an American withdrawal has long sparked unease, as many feel it would accelerate the growth of Irans influence and a resurgence of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

Shortly after the announcement was made, Baghdads Green Zone, a heavily fortified area that houses foreign embassies, including that of the US, became the target of a rocket attack. These attacks have become a frequent occurrence in 2020, emblematic of Iraqs current situation.

The perpetrators believed responsible for conducting the attack are Shia militias backed by Tehran. In recent years, armed groups such as Kataib Hezbollah have gained strength in Iraq, undermining efforts to create stability in the country.

Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a government-sponsored Iraqi umbrella organisation comprising about 40 militias formed in 2014 to fight ISIL.

When Iraqs then-Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi restructured the countrys armed forces in 2018, the PMFs militias, including Kataib Hezbollah, became part of the Iraqi military.

This allowed Iran to wield even more power in Iraqi affairs from government to business and within the military, allowing Tehran to directly influence its neighbours decision-making process and play a pivotal role in the struggle for power in the country.

Tehrans continuing support has made Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis attempts to control the now-incorporated militias futile, as C Anthony Pfaff, a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, concludes.

Iranian support for certain Shia militias makes them extremely resistant to efforts by the government to integrate and control them. Without external support, they would be much more dependent on government funding and more likely to be compliant with government demands.

The decision to withdraw US troops will likely shift power significantly in favour of Iran, an ironic development in light of Trumps constant efforts throughout his presidency to weaken Iran via a maximum pressure campaign.

The path to withdrawal was paved in January when the Iraqi parliament, in which Tehran-affiliated groups yield significant power, voted in favour of expelling US forces.

The foundations created in Iraq with the help of the international community are in peril of being lost, according to David Pollock, Bernstein fellow at the Washington Institute, who outlines the pros and cons of a US withdrawal:

If US troops stay in Iraq, they would greatly reinforce Americas position there and help counter Irans malign influence throughout the region. But if they leave, Iraq would be at immediate risk of slipping back into the destructive isolation of the Saddam era, with even less ability to resist Irans predatory policies.

Decades of violence and unrest since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein subsequent to an invasion by the US and allies has left Iraq unable to form a stable government and institutions capable of protecting its citizens. Thousands of Iraqis have been protesting against Tehrans influence, against the rule of militias, corruption, and nepotism. Iranian militias were, Pfaff assesses, responsible for killing, kidnapping, and torturing protesters.

The latter notwithstanding, Trump seeks to follow up on his promise and bring troops home before President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration on January 20.

The withdrawal, according to Tuesdays announcement, will reduce the US military presence in Iraq from 3,000 to about 2,500 soldiers, half of the initially deployed force of 5,000. Millers predecessor, Mark Esper, who was recently fired by Trump, had advocated maintaining a viable troop presence in Iraq.

Iran is not the only actor benefitting from the US plans, the fight against ISIL is also likely to suffer from an American withdrawal. Although the international anti-ISIL coalition announced the defeat of the armed group in March 2019, fighters have since regrouped and continue to have plentiful financial assets while still generating millions through smuggling and extortion.

ISIS has been able to use recent developments in Iraq as substantial operational opportunities: widespread public protests since October, the governments resignation and the ensuing political stagnation, the infighting over the US killing of Popular Mobilisation Forces leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, says Husham al-Hashimi, a fellow at the Center for Global Policy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role in these developments, forcing the international coalition to suspend its training of Iraqi soldiers in order to prevent outbreaks among the troops in early 2020.

Few have been more successful in taking advantage of the pandemic than the Islamic State,saysColin P Clarke, senior research fellow at The Soufan Center.

While the training has resumed since, countries such as Germany have drastically reduced the number of training personnel, to the missions detriment.

In the meantime, hundreds of armed fighters have retreated to remote, sparsely populated areas such as Salah al-Din province from where they still launch devastating attacks.

With a further decreased US presence and the subsequent vacuum created, a surge in the armed groups activities is probable, Pollock says, arguing that: The quantity and severity of such attacks would surely rise in the absence of US and allied military pressure.

As such, the combination of declining Iraqi government authority and the vacuum a US withdrawal could create may put one of the pivotal states in the Middle East in jeopardy with Iran and ISIL potentially becoming the immediate beneficiaries of a renewed descent.

The rest is here:
What the US troop withdrawal means for Iraq - Al Jazeera English

Iraqs economy is so riddled with corruption that minor border post jobs are changing hands for as much as $100,000, Iraqs deputy prime minister, Ali Allawi, has admitted.

In an extraordinarily frank speech about his governments efforts to introduce reforms, he said there were no quick wins, adding the economy would probably remain in existential crisis so long as oil does not reach $70 a barrel for a sustained period and called for cuts in public spending as its revenues fall short.

Allawi said only a tenth of the $8bn due annually to the Iraqi treasury arrived from border customs, in contrast to Jordan, where 97% was received. He said border customs are riddled with corruption to the point where minor clerks jobs in some outposts change there for $50,000 to $100,000 and sometimes it goes up to multiples of that.

He likened Iraqs situation to the coming of the dry season at a lake in Africa where the fish become more frenzied as the oxygen levels reduce many of these people did not know how to extract rent from this dwindling pool.

The new government of Mustafa al-Kadhimi, in which Allawi is also the finance minister, came to power in May following extended and sometimes violent street protests. It has introduced a massive economic reform white paper ahead of elections due next year.

Allawi said: On the assumption that oil prices dont move up, something somewhere has to give either we follow a sort of Venezuela course and become an oil economy that goes belly up, or we tighten our belts.

He said nobodys going to be for belt-tightening, but claimed there was a subliminal recognition that things had to change. Current levels of public spending were unsustainable, he said.

It requires, I must say, that somebody has to say no at some point and now, I suppose this has fallen to me to say no but you can only say no, up to a point, or then they will say no to you.

Allawi said: A lot of the countrys problems are interlocking and whenever there is an issue that requires resolution, theres bound to be some vested interest, sometimes extremely powerful, that stop this from happening.

People say, Why not go after low-hanging fruit. There really is no such thing as low-hanging fruit if the entire environment around you is to a large extent devastated.

Iraq, Opecs second largest producer, has been struggling to pay public salaries due to dwindling oil revenues as the coronavirus pandemic hits crude prices. In October, the federal government earned only $3.45bn (2.58bn) in oil export revenues, which is not enough to cover salaries, benefits and other essential expenses.

Iraq has also failed for most of this year to adhere to its Opec+ quota due to its financial and political struggles.

If Iraqs Kurdistan region is included, Iraq pumped out 3.842m barrels a day in October, up from Septembers 3.6m and exceeding its Opec+ quota of 3.804m.

Allawi said Iraqs acceptance of the Opec model of one size fits all allocating output cuts without taking into account member countries economic and political conditions was close to breaking point, suggesting Iraq may leave the network.

Discussing the role of US troops in Iraq, he said: In terms of the significance of US presence, its moved from being sort of essential to stability to being somewhat ornamental. The US has 3,000 troops in the country, but the numbers are set to fall to 2,500 in January, before Joe Bidens inauguration.

Iraqs national security adviser, Qasim Al-Araji, said US policies had pushed armed groups in Iraq to escalate. The killings of the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and the leader of the Iranian Quds force, Qassem Suleimani, had undoubtedly made the situation worse. Iraq has been a victim of these regional conflicts and disputes.

Read more from the original source:
Iraqi deputy PM says economy in crisis and 'riddled with corruption' - The Guardian