On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the alliance is increasing its military presence in Iraq.
“The size of our mission will increase from 500 personnel to around 4,000 and training activities will now include more Iraqi security institutions and areas beyond Baghdad,” Stoltenberg said after a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers.
NATO describes its presence in Iraq as a “security training mission.” Stoltenberg said the alliance’s presence “is conditions-based and increases in troop numbers will be incremental.”
The US currently has 2,500 troops in Iraq. According to CNBC, a Pentagon official told reporters this week that the US was “enthusiastic about and welcomes NATO’s increased focus on Iraq.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would not disclose if the US is planning to add more forces to Iraq.
The announcement comes after a rocket attack on the US military base in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, that left one contractor dead. While the media is blaming the incident on Iran, the US has yet to attribute blame. With Iran seeking sanctions relief from the new administration, Tehran has no reason to stoke tensions with the US in Iraq.
Also on Thursday, Stoltenberg said no decision has been made on whether or not NATO will withdraw from Afghanistan by May 1st, the deadline set by the US-Taliban peace deal.
Sorry Iraqis, your country is now even openly declared training polygon. Proving grounds. And should someone shoot at the troops in training, so much the better! Then the hunt can start, and live targets are plentiful.
Reminds one of Sparta, and raids on peasants that were not Greeks, and nobody still cares who those colonized people were. Those were proving grounds, like today our missions around globe. When we run out of spurious enemies, and we cannot any more stretch labels like Sl-Qaeda or ISIS — we are just training. For another designer label of some desert people ideal to put training in practice.
The Helots were Greeks, they were just the lowest social class in the region the Spartans lived, and the Spartans ritually waged war against them.
“US was “enthusiastic about and welcomes NATO’s increased focus on Iraq.”
But of course. No enthusiasm, no NATO. A mere coincidence that NATO and the US always agree. Still wondering how the Iraqis feel.
“What a terrorist in a suit says about the Syrian conflict”— https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/what-a-terrorist-in-a-suit-says-about-the-syrian-conflict/
How many terrorist in suits are celebrating in Brussels ?
What could go wrong?
So there will be more targets for the many Iraqi militias, who said in October that they were suspending attacks because the US was pulling out troops. Now that foreign troops are being added there will be more motivation to attack the foreign troops. . . .brings us back the bad old Obama days! Thanks, Joe, your Stoltenberg puppet is present for duty (in Brussels).
“War is the health of the State. . .It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate co-operation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties, the minorities are either intimidated into silence or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them to really converting them . . .” . –Randolph Bourne, 1918 . .here
Iraq has about democracy & self rule as the United States. Both are military occupied this month.
PresChairman Biden was supposed to be more popular than Obama? What a joke. You are either a brainwashed partisan, have not studied the results, and/or have no memory of those years. Early morning vote spikes with obvious fraudulent counts where Biden is shown to get up to 21 times his opponent are documented in three states. The American empire has came home & created its own color revolution.That means more attacks on our forces. Let’s remember that Iraqi Parliament’s overwhelming votes, demanding a total withdrawal of US & NATO forces from Iraq. That means we’re not welcomed in their country. Biden is going down the wrong path so early in the game!
I wonder Could this be in preparation to widen the war in Syria against Asad? Sort of unfinished business. A pretext for it would not be difficult to find.
Gotta get that Syrian oil out someway.
Also, with US help, ISIS is gaining strength in Syria.
Ever since the first week of Nov. it seems.
The NATO paper tiger has increased in size recently, with Montenegro and North Macedonia, so look for better results, or any results at all.
Well, you know what they say…at least it’s not a new war…..;?[