Iraqi officials are warning that they would face almost immediate economic collapse if President Trump follows through on sanctions against them for asking US troops to leave. Iraq’s parliament voted on January 5, 170-0, to order the government to expel all foreign troops.
President Trump has threatened massive sanctions against Iraq, and more recently, suggestions are that the US would freeze Iraq’s bank account at the New York Federal Reserve, where all of Iraq’s oil revenues go.
Which is also 90 percent of Iraq’s budget. Iraqi officials have confirmed “threatening calls” from the US over the troops, insisting that they have no intention of leaving Iraq just because Iraq is asking.
The collapse of their entire economy, while still theoretical at this point, isn’t a healthy thing to have hanging over Iraq going forward. Siemens CEO Joe Kaesar warned he believes that “putting sanctions on something just because you don’t get your will is maybe also not always helpful.“
Siemens has a $15 billion electricity development contract for Iraq. While they say they don’t intend to scale back the project, there is a risk for them, like everyone else, that the US will just take all of Iraq’s money and leave them unable to pay.
Maybe Iraq should reconsider kissing America’s butt.
Would Netanyahu be so stupid to support the transformation of Iraq into a recruiting camp for ISIL?
Again, this is coming from the same guy who insisted invading Iraq was a huuuuge mistake. Obviously it couldn’t have been because he was against war and all the suffering the people on the other end of our bombing campaigns would endure since the sanctions have the same effect, death.
Anything to delay the impeachment process or at least keep it out of the mass media.
Why do NATO “allies” and others allow this wholesale illegal and vicious behavior from the USA?? This, after thirty years of US interference in Iraq, leading to its almost complete destruction yet the USA claims Iraq is an ally and refuses to arrange for US troops to leave when asked. This as well as the death threats to the Iraqi PM from Trump and Trump’s insistence that Iraq NOT engage China to help with reconstruction as Mahdi has arranged, are the acts of an out-of-control dictator. Why can he get away with this??
If Iraq wanted, they still could get out of this helplessness But the corruption at both places- Baghdad and DC make that impossible.
Blame the victim.