Mediaboss Marketing

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

The Defense Department recently announced troop withdrawals by Jan. 15 that will reduce American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to 2,500 each from their one-time highs of some 170,000 and 100,000 troops, respectively. This drawdown makes explicit what those of us who served in the military have long realized: We lost.

War is evil even when it is necessary but our inability to win has stolen even the possibility that the ends might justify the means. For the roughly three million service members whose boots touched soil in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 19 years, our defeat is a uniquely personal loss.

When I was sent to Iraq in 2009 it was to safeguard our withdrawal. During our entire deployment in the once treacherous Sunni triangle we discovered and disposed of a single roadside bomb on the main highway outside Falluja, where they had once been as common as potholes. I returned home wishing I could have done more but was glad to see how much progress had been made by the regiments whod fought so hard before me.

When I read a few years later that the Islamic State had overrun that same area I began to sense that our efforts had been in vain. But it was my Afghanistan deployment in 2010-2011 that cemented their futility for me.

My company defended a labyrinthine cluster of mud-walled villages set amid fields of poppy and corn in the Musa Qala District of Helmand Province. As the northern tip of the Marine campaign in Helmand we held a line alongside battalion after battalion of Marines that extended south through the river valley to the district center, where the bazaar and the governor were, and then down past Sangin to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and further to Marja and Garmsir.

People often ask me what Afghanistan was like but I can never really answer: Each district might as well have been its own war for the Marines who fought, with victories and defeats known only to them.

I often think back on the moments in my deployments when the crack of a gunshot or the deep thud of a large roadside bomb suddenly infused my life at war with a clear and tangible purpose. I remember the kids lining up the first day after the school reopened, the first time the partners we trained in the Afghan Army took the initiative to patrol without our assistance, and the rare smile on a villagers face after wed provided the first aid that had saved the life of his father, who had been shot in crossfire.

I try to remember those small decencies instead of the casualties and the killing but they do little to assuage the overwhelming senselessness of the greater war.

Shortly after I returned from Afghanistan in 2011, President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed during a raid on his compound in Pakistan, where he was living after fleeing Afghanistan years before. As I watched people celebrating outside the White House and outside ground zero I hoped that the war was finally over, but even then it didnt feel like victory.

The conflict had grown so much bigger since the attacks of Sept. 11 that his death felt like a footnote. The execution of a single dethroned sheikh suddenly paled in significance to my own recent experience at war. Later that night I tried to recall the circumstances surrounding the death of each man wed killed and count how many there had been but there were too many to remember.

The Afghanistan war was finally lost for me in August 2015, several years after my own deployment ended, when the Taliban recaptured Musa Qala, which five men in my company had died defending. After the Talibans seizure, allied airstrikes bombed the same government center wed sacrificed so much to hold.

A member of Parliament from Helmand Province later described that building as completely vanished from the earth. Along with it was buried any hope there might have been that the sacrifices I, and so many others, have made in service to our country would not be in vain.

The cost of these wars has been astronomical: Roughly $6 trillion in government spending, with the Defense Department spending alone costing each American taxpayer an estimated more than $7,000. Additionally, todays young veterans face a legacy of psychological and physical injury, as well as illness from our wars Agent Orange: the toxic burn pits whose smoke we inhaled.

Even more costly are the approximately 515,000 people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including more than 260,000 civilians. And for what? Iraq remains a tenuous democracy teeming with militias while Afghanistan is locked in a conflict with a resurgent Taliban, and peace talks are in deadlock.

Both countries fail to meet the objectives of freedom and democracy set when President George W. Bush started those wars. They fall short of President Obamas goals when he sent me and 30,000 other troops to Afghanistan and of the claims he made when declaring an end to combat operation in Iraq only to see the Islamic State undo those gains. President Trump does not seem to even have a purpose for those 5,000 troops who will remain in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Like many service members I wrote a letter in case I was killed during my deployment. It began with an assurance to the friends and family I would have left behind: It was worth it. I believed then that we had a moral obligation to not only protect my fellow Americans but to leave the Afghan and Iraqi people with a chance to live in peace.

That obligation remains even though it cannot be fulfilled. Instead I am resigned that these wars will finally enter the history books not only as defeats but as stains on our national honor.

The political theorist and philosopher Michael Walzer writes in Just and Unjust Wars that it still seems important to say of those who die in war that they did not die in vain. And when we cant say that, or think we cant, we mix our mourning with anger. I would add that we also mix it with shame.

I recognize that shame is not a very American trait but with it comes humility. Sadly, my generation had to relearn the lessons of Vietnam in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in coming to grips with our defeat, we have a chance to ensure that we do not sacrifice future generations to such folly.

And by so doing we may yet salvage some purpose from this tragedy: to do everything in our power to avoid more wars, and to ensure that if and when the next war does come, it is worth it.

Timothy Kudo (@KudoTim), a former Marine captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is working on a novel about the Afghanistan war.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Originally posted here:
The Truth That Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Know - The New York Times

Issued on: 26/11/2020 - 16:02

This month marks fiveyears since the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar, home to the country's Yazidi minority, was liberated from the Islamic State group. Thousands of those forced to flee during the jihadists' reign of terror are now returning home but the place they're returning to is riddled with political tension and instability. The recent decision to let the semi-autonomous administration of Iraqi Kurdistan take control of security in Sinjar is unlikely to be a silver bullet. Our correspondentsJack Hewson and Lucile Wassermann report.

Also, could Saudi Arabia become the latest Arab country to normalise ties with Israel? Israeli media are reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to the kingdom for secret landmark talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

And with Cairo's 42nd Cairo International Film Festivaljust around the corner, we meet some of the young Egyptian directors determined to use their work to challenge the status quo.

Original post:
Middle East matters - Thousands of Yazidis head back to Iraq's Sinjar despite tensions - FRANCE 24

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 2002, at a national convention of the Veterans of Foreign War, Bushs 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 harms 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 dont fight wars. Countries fight wars. I hope to hell we learned that in Vietnam a country fights a war. If it doesnt, then we shouldnt send an army.

But lets 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.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.

See original here:
Shields: Afghanistan and Iraq: When will we ever learn? - Standard-Examiner