Iraqi officials expressed surprise yesterday with the announcement from US Defense Secretary Ash Carter that US ground troops were going to carry out “direct action on the ground,” which he clarified as meaning combat against ISIS, in both Iraq and Syria.
It’s not just that the US has been denying plans for combat operations on the ground in Iraq for over a year, but that Iraq has similarly, repeatedly, said such action was unwelcome, and apparently was never consulted before Carter announced the Pentagon’s intentions to the US Congress.
International operations in Iraq have been a topic of considerable discussion lately. Iraq’s position is they don’t need foreign boots on the ground, but they’ll take airstrikes from whoever. The US had been angry with the suggestion Russia might start to carry out such strikes, and informed Russia “Iraq doesn’t want” their help, even though Iraq appears to loudly disagree.
In that context, the unilateral US announcement of combat operations on the ground in Iraq is inevitably being viewed as more American dictation of policy is a war where they’ve repeatedly told the Iraqis they expect them to “take the lead.” Iraqi officials are sticking to their old position, too, saying they have enough ground troops and neither need nor want the US to start doing that again.
While US ground operations might be a near-term boon for the Iraqi government, they would almost certainly leave the government again heavily dependent on American occupation forces for security in the long-run, and risk confrontations with politically powerful Shi’ite militias who have been a major force in resisting ISIS to this point.
Shock and Awe II.
I'm wondering if the Iraqi puppet government understand
that its the puppet master who pull the strings.
If the 51% most wealthy are the voting majority and they do so love their wars of wealth expansion, is this the root cause of wealth disparity?
The point of this may be to provoke Putin into getting involved. Just so as to thumb his nose at the US again! If I recall correctly, Iraq has actually asked for Russian help. Bogged down in Syria (and Ukraine!), probably about to get bogged down in Afghanistan (see the article elsewhere on this site), getting Putin bogged down in Iraq as well would be a triple whammy! If, on the other hand, Putin allows the US to "dictate" to Iraq, he discredits himself. He reveals that he is afraid to stand up to the US. Heads Ukraine wins, tails Putin loses.
One of the problems of setting out to deliberately genocide a people is that for many years there will always be a remnant who refuse to die or forget their old cultural ways.
But it is not Iraq, as a nation it is only an administrative district that is demanded of to buy military equipment and to protect US/Euro buisness concerns, and as a peoples the only remnants left of old resistance is the Shite militias and it is those people who are holding up the US/Israel protectorate Kurdistan from being put in place.
THEY and NOT THE MERCENARY POLICE AND MILITARY that US demandsh fight or die, but that lingering cultural ties of those militia who have not completely given up on being IRAQ.
They kick ISIL but because they stand and fight and hang around sniping them and stealing the US air dropped supplies they and Kurds recieve.
Iraq is of no strategic military value to any one other than the Euro/US/Japan and yes Israel through their Kurd allies access to 20% of worlds cheapest price oil.
Russia will not dare arouse that power as he is alrady under their sanctions.
US now just kicked what manhood was left in Iraq right square in it’s balls and any tid bit that anyone in Iraq who may of thought there might just be a chance of Iraq having some sovereignty has been neutered.