Iraq Says Yes to Iran
By Larry Johnson on August 3, 2009 at 9:25 PM in Current Affairs
(bumped up from the pre-dawn hours of July 31st)
Iran may be beating the living shit out of proponents for a less extreme regine but when it comes to Iraq our erstwhile “ally” is telling us to fuck off and siding with the regime in Tehran. The Washington Post had this report on Wednesday:
Violent clashes continued for a second day Wednesday between Iraqi troops and members of an Iranian opposition group whose camp the Iraqis stormed Tuesday, presenting the first major dilemma for the U.S. government since Iraq proclaimed its sovereignty a month ago.
At least eight Iranians have been killed and 400 wounded since Tuesday, when hundreds of Iraqi police and soldiers in riot gear plowed into Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, using Humvees donated by the U.S. military, according to group leaders and Abdul Nasir al-Mahdawi, the governor of Diyala province.
Camp residents described the day’s events as a massacre and the aftermath as a tense stalemate.
Behzad Saffari, a leader of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, said that Iraqi troops were preventing gravely injured people from being taken to hospitals outside the group’s camp and that residents feared soldiers would storm their living quarters.
The meaning is simple.
Iraq is attacking a terrorist group that Iran views as a threat. A terrorist group that has been protected by the United States is now in the crosshairs of the Iraqi security forces.
So much for isolating Iran.
Now consider this piece:
A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”
The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved.
Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans.
“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”
You can read the full memo here.
Iraq is going to be a Shiite nation not an American puppet. Ultimately this helps Iran. Demonstrators may be in the streets protesting “I’m a Dinner Jacket” aka Ahmadinejad but Iraq is backing the crazy little twerp. Heck off a job!!
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