The US narrative that the Shi’ite militias fighting alongside Iraq’s Shi’ite government are “Iranian militias” seems to be spilling over into policy diktats from US officials, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demanding over the weekend that the militias all go home to Iran.
In the course of fighting against ISIS, the Iraqi government enlisted the help of Shi’ite militias, including some from neighboring countries, to fight alongside the military. The militias at this point, however, are formally already structured into the Iraqi government’s security forces, and there is a government ministry that manages the militias.
Tillerson is demanding that the militias “go home,” and that any members who are Iraqis join the Iraqi military, which isn’t how the Iraqi government has been managing the militias at all, nor is it likely what they even want.
Iran-based militias have an important role in the Iraqi government, with Prime Minister Abadi and many other top officials part of the Badr Brigade, one of the bigger such militias. Iraqi officials seem to prefer to keep these militias as auxiliary fighters for their respective political movements.
The US interest in disbanding the militias is likely to prevent them being used against Iraqi Kurdistan, as already the militias have participated in military offensives against Kurdish towns. Once again, what the US wants and what Iraq intends to have happen aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Trump has unwisely put himself in the middle of a conflict he cannot possibly win.
That would be the The People versus the Deep State, not Iraq.
Obama sent U.S. forces back into Iraq and started the ball rolling on Iraqi Kurdistan. Trumps just there for the good times.
It was inevitable that once the Sunni were put down (again), the Iraqi government would need to be separated from any Iranian support and deprived of effective forces allowing it to exercise some independence from the U.S..
The Iraqis should just tell the Americans to leave now and save everyone the coming trouble.
This man is dumb!! These Shiite militias are Iraqi’s not Iranians. LOL!!
Iran and Iraq aren’t as close as some might assume but the Americans will never accept anything less than a return to the bad old days when Iraq was a client state and direst enemy of Iran.
An effective Iraqi military stopping U.S. Kurdistan is just bitter icing on the cake Shub half-baked for posterity.
Iran and Iraq aren’t as close as some might assume but the Americans will …
fix that.
Militias to Tillerson: “You first”.
They were born in Iraq. Tillerson is also a moron.
This us aimed at US populace, preferably Trump voters to simplify things for morans — hence Shia = Iran, and vice versa.
They will happy happily agree to leave Iraq, but heading west, not east. The offensive to help the Syrian government liberate eastern Syria from Kurdish and American occupying armies is almost ready.
Victory has been just around the corner since 2011. Their propaganda is as bad as ours.
It’s only propaganda when it’s phony.. A lot has changed since ’11. A lot has changed since ’16.
Putin is calling the shots, not Netanyahu.
That’s very true, to score against Western propaganda all pro-Russian sites like The Saker had to do was tell the truth to gain credibility and an audience.
And, all they had to do to lose credibility with anyone who could think critically was to censor posts and posters with intelligent challenges against their own followup propaganda which was not quite the whole truth and otherwise poorly police their forums.
Pro-Russian propaganda mostly promoted such nonsense that victory was around the corner, that the Syrian Arab Army was bravely and swiftly fighting to regain Syria, and the Russian intervention radically turned the tides of war rah-rah-rah.
The truth was somewhere in the middle; monitoring the Wiki’s Syrian Civil War map, a neutral and objective barometer of the actual course of the war, indicated Syrian loyalists were slowly and painfully crawling their way to victory barely surviving on Russian air support.
Citeam.org posted “Here’s why Assad’s Army Can’t Win the War in Syria” (citeam.org, 9 Sept. 2016), a scathing Russian-origin article on the deficiencies of the Syrian Arab Army and the strain supporting it placed on Russia. It explained what the pro-Russian sites couldn’t; American persistence in the face of apparent defeat and the obvious failure of the SAA-Russian expeditionary force to win quickly.
So when I say their propaganda is as bad as ours, I mean, remember that the West has no lock on deception and we The People have to police that ourselves by exercising critical thinking and being supportive of real news and analysis.
Right now it is not propaganda — just the facts. Syrian army is blocked in chasing ISIS by US soecial ops being practically imbedded in ISIS controlled area. Since there are no Kurds living there to provide sxcuse — niw US is announcing Arab councils, that will justify US staying in Syria-Iraq birder. But these may be Arab — but ISIS Arab — as the occupiers will not let pooulation to have voice! Hiw clever — just rename ISIS Arab tribes — and voila! ISIS “defeated”. Neocinvlues are plentiful and malodorous. American people will need showers fir a decade to remivev its stench from our country.
The Wiki Syrian Civil War Detailed Map clearly shows the real-time progress thus far of the SAA. The IS is the greatest loser and its rump territories are not falling like dominoes, even if they are falling.
The Syrian government the greatest gainer, and, Syrian Kurdistan is quite large.
Call it up and hit a few times if the map is too big for your screen. Victory over the IS by Syria-Russia alone is some months away, and there’s still the very large (but no longer massive) terrorist presence in Idlib to consider.
I’ve followed this map’s progress for a couple of years now and have concluded pro-Russian outlets that are not reliable real news, exaggerate SAA-Russian speed of progress based on observing real results.
I disagree. Until 2015 the Al-Qaeda factions were winning. Since 2015 there has been steady gains for the governments of Iraq and Syria. This was an important change.
Where you could call me in error, is not recognizing that Western
propaganda was far more vicious and inflammatory, stooping to
Russophobia and personal attacks against world leaders. So, it would be wrong for me to say theirs was a bad as ours; ours was orders of magnitude worse. My mistake was to present an opinion on the warfighting spectrum as the whole package.
Russian propaganda gave a false impression of the speed of their successes, hid the reasons behind their lack of flattering results, and soft-pedaled any atrocities committed by their side, just like we did. Of course we had a lot more and far dirtier laundry to hide.
Russia used what could be called ‘disarming honesty’; tell the truth when its perfectly safe to do so, then sneak in a little disinfo when readers’ guards are down.
The Russians were a class act, but since the major part of the Russian information campaign was truthtelling using real news and analysis, it can’t really be called propaganda.
Russia fought and won an information war, and only screwed up when some of their infowarriors couldn’t shed old school propaganda habits recalling the Soviet era.
The West entirely fought an old school propaganda war thinking it was an information war and never noticed they had misidentified checkers as chess.
I don’t see any daylight between Tillerson’s position regarding Iran, Iraq and Syria and Netanyahu’s. Certainly, the demand for the “militias” (i.e. Iran’s forces) to leave Iraq originated with Netanyahu. Doubtless, should the militias leave Iraq, Israel follow up with increased attacks on Syrian Army positions…but this will happen anyway.
Iraqi leaders have caught on that Iran is a better friend, more understanding and supportive of Iraqi interests than the US. Shiite militias must leave Iraq – or what are you going to do, Mr Tillerson? The US is not going to re-invade Iraq right now. With hardly an excuse for the US to invade Iran, Iran will consolidate their influence as the regional power that it is.
The Saudis and Israel will throw a fit, since they had plans to dominate the region. The only way that will happen is if they can manufacture some damning facts to get the world united against Iran. Watch for it!
How about the US go home from the Middle East.
How pathetic. The US is in denial about its Operation Iraqi Freedom which converted Iraq to an Iran ally. And how about those US-supported foreign militias fighting against Syria?
It is a very belated and unintelligent way to be
relevant in sorting out Kurdish issue in Iraq. The idea is to stir up (AGAIN) Sunni and Kurdish anymosity towards Shia, and hopefully towards Iran.
This is so late and so stupid — baffles the mind. What worked in Saddam’s era and immediate aftermath — not even Petreaus can brought back to life. So, to neocon morans — whose strategy Trump is dutifully executing with a panache for grotesque absurdity — Kurds, Sunni and Shia have learned their lessons in US 101. Thus, Barzani Peshmerga Kurds have outsmarted you — suckers. You neocons tried to get Iraqi Kurdistan to be Iseaeli sidekicks, anti-Arab allies. But to do that, Barzani dynasty had to be brought down to size. It was done by springing into prominence ISIS, well armed mercenaries under the rule of fanatical Sunni Wahhabis, and a cult was created , fed and armed to tackle key neuralgic points in the middle east. One, to occupy large population centers like Mosul with Sunni majority, Kirkuk area with energy sources, Sinjar for its geostrateguc value on Iraq-Syria axis, energy rich areas of Syria, and a string of villages and towns on Syria-Turkey border. Drunk with sucess, neocons proceeded putting Barzani down, and favoring Iraqi branch of PKK. The outcome? US allowed PKK militants and political structures to enter Sinjar after “liberation” from ISIS, same with region of Kurkuk. The expected political struggle between the “modern” and ZUS supported PKK, and “old guard” Barzani Peshmerga, was to sideline Barzani. But Barzani developed good relations with Turkey, and Turkey helped them by bombing PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan region. He also developed good relationship with Baghdad. To beat back US supported
PKK politically — Barzani announced referendum on independence. Why was US not delighted? Barzani will eventually sort things out with Baghdad, and US, UK and Israel would lose decades worth of investment. This is why neither Turkey nor Baghdad said much in months keading up to referendum. US has been forced to disapprove referendum — telling US Syrian clients that it will not back them up either. After referendum, Kurds did not defend Kirkuk, nor Sinjar areas. These areas, taken by ISIS from Baghdad, and gifted to PKK is returning to Baghdad control, and Kurds are apparently giving up their ill gotten gains and expansion courtesy of US/ISIS. Barzani will cut a deal with Baghdad, and very likely get legal authonomy, as oposed to the unifficial one established by US no-fly zone. With solud anti-PKK alliance with Turkey, Iraqi Kurds are slipping away from neocon plans. In a desparate move, now US and European idiots, are blaming Baghdad, trying to stir anti-Shia sentiment, Germany promising to train Kurds, just to get camel’s nose inside the tent. Now suddenly, they are all “concerned” about Iraqi government incursion into Kirkuk. Never mind that Kirkuk is not a majority Kurdish region. Never mind, when Nethanyahu roars that Israel has some claims on Kirkuk oil fields! How much money was invested into ISIS to deliver Kurkuk to Kurds — just for Barzani allowing it to go back under Baghdad control! And Iraqi forces kicked PKK out of Sinjar! So now what? A bit of shoiting from the hip — until some strategy emerged. If US can deckare Lebanese militia, Hexbollah a terrorist organization — why not the any Shia miliia in Iraq.
Turkey in the meantime has ckeared border with Syria of ISIS, and prevented those from being “liberated” by Kurds — and creating a contiguous Kurd region connectin Afrin and Kobane enclaves. Another ISIS investment down the drain.
WhileUS troups are inbedded into ISIS area in Deir Azzor, and are creating an obstacle for Syrian army to defeat ISIS — it is questionable how can US cobble up by force some local councils. And all that smack in the middle of ISIS controlled area!
This is a theater of the absurd. At present, US is working against two governments — Iraqi and Syrian — to carve out a foothold as an excuse to stay. But the region desired — Deir Azzir — has no Kurdish population, hence no hearth breaking humanitarian concern. And licals cannot freely say anythingvwhike under ISIS occupation. So, apparently USvusvtrying to set up Arab councils to ask US to stay — while the same locals are under ISIS control? Ghise should be called ISIS councils, asking US to stay there and protect them, POOR SUNNIS, against bad Shia! It is so stupid, it boggles the mind.
What about “All US military personnel to return to the Homeland”.??
Is it just me or are these handlers just morons?