United States making every effort to keep its troops in Middle East

Iraqi Parliament passed a resolution to expel US troops from the country two weeks ago. However, Washington does not seem ready to leave the country. According to some analysts, the US administration knows it very well that leaving Iraq could become the preamble of complete exit from Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

There is growing consensus that the presence of US troops in MENA and South Asia, especially Iraq, is part of greater agenda of fragmentation and establishing a “Feeble Middle East”. The strategy was formed during Bill Clinton’s presidency and it was practically launched by George W. Bush. 

The strategy has been applied in all the tactics and policies of US foreign and defense policies in the past two decades. There seems no ambiguity or disagreement between Democrats and Republicans regarding the necessity of its implementation. Criticizing Donald Trump’s recent behavior in the region by his Democratic rivals is related to the failure of the White House in carrying out the strategy.

The US withdrawal from the JCPOA, exerting pressure for a new deal or at least including new articles in the current deal, and insisting to limit the Iranian influence in the region can be assessed in this regard.

Washington has made great investment in exploiting the terrorist potential of Takfiri groups for the fragmentation in the region. The presence of US troops in the region, under the pretext of the fight against ISIS, is an issue of crucial importance for the White House, which it will not easily ignore.

The United States has witnessed major d.efeats in the political, military and intelligence areas by the axis of resistance. It has failed in executing its plans, despite spending billions of dollars of US tax payers. This became an important matter in Iraq and officials provided the conditions for greater synergy with the axis of resistance, a move that infuriated the White House.

Over the last four months, the US has put the tactic of “creating a power vacuum based on social protest” on its agenda to weaken those leaders who want complete expelling of US troops from the region. Washington has sought to undermine the Iranian-Iraqi strategic unity through anti-Iran slogans and prepare the ground for its troops to remain in Iraq.

The assassination of senior commanders of the resistance movement, Major General Qassem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was the same blunder that the theorists of the partition project were afraid of since they considered it as the loss of all American possessions in the region.

Iraqis agreed upon the expulsion of US troops from the country. The incident was the beginning of the new White House game in Iraq, US administration made every effort to disrupt the implementation of the resolution.

The US administration termed the resolution illegal and then claimed that the parliament did not have a quorum at the time of voting. The US administration also stated that under the Iraqi constitution, parliamentary sessions will take legal form if more than half of the members plus one person attend the session. This is exactly what happened during the voting.

When they failed in proving the allegation, US officials resorted to bypassing the resolution by bringing up again the old disputes between the Kurdish leaders and Baghdad. 

The US is also trying to convince the UN Security Council of the necessity of continuing its presence in Iraq to fight terrorism, by transferring a number of ISIS leaders (trained at U.S. bases, especially in Syria's Al-Tanaf and Al-Hasakah) to Iraq. In fact, several terrorist operations recently carried out by ISIS elements in Iraq is an example of the US hostility.

A new wave of violent protests has been staged in the past few days, which are allegedly being directly led by the US embassy in Baghdad. Washington is seeking to seize the opportunity and stabilize its presence in Iraq by disrupting the process of appointing a new prime minister. 

It seems that Iraq will witness some unrest due to enmity of the US and its regional and European allies, including Britain, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Lopsided reporting on United States-Iran Conflict

Without mincing words, it may be said that Pakistani readers/viewers get no clue of the current United States-Iran Conflict. To be precise they are lost by reading reports released by international media houses. The reason in most obvious, these media houses are owned and operated by anti-Muslim elements.

Over the years, distorted news reports were released about Pakistan-India conflict that culminated at East Pakistan, becoming Bangladesh. During 1965 and 1971 Pakistanis became addicted to BBC, as they were made to believe that the reporting was ‘fair’. When Saddam Hussein of Iraq attack Kuwait Pakistanis were introduced to another fantasy, CNN, as live coverage were provided by ‘embedded journalists’. After 9/11, United States attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and over the last four decades, Pakistanis have been completely brain washed and now they believe only Western media provides unbiased reports.

Let me point out the deficiency of Pakistani media houses, they hardly have correspondents even in Brother Muslim countries. As a result these media houses are obliged to use tinted reports released by international agencies, numbering less than half a dozen. Interestingly Pakistani news agencies also have arrangement with some foreign agencies and use their content without any deciphering.

Added to this, are the political affiliation of the owners of media houses with countries and sects. It is also not a secret that the successive governments in Pakistan have remained inclined to certain global and regional super powers, as a result some reports are overblown and some are completely blacked out.

Now coming to the current and the most contentious issue of United States-Iran confrontation, no one can deny Pakistan has been towing the US foreign policy, since independence. Over the years Pakistan also faced tenses relations with USSR. It has been facing tense relations with Afghanistan, Iran and India.

The biggest example of US hegemony is non-completion of Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline. The dichotomy of US policy can be gauged from the fact that India was allowed to construct Chabahar Port in Iran as well as rail and road links connecting the port to Central Asian Countries. Was not this hoodwinking aimed at undermining the importance of Pakistan?

I am inclined to infer that the most important aspects of present media system, and yet hardly known to the public that most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.These news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media around the world and Pakistan cannot be an exception. No daily media outlet can manage without them. They influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected.

In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public: A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all.  On the contrary, they play an enormously important role in the media market.

There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story.

In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.

Iraqi Parliament votes to expel US troops from Iraq

Reportedly in an extraordinary session on Sunday, the Iraqi parliament voted for a resolution requiring the government to order the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

The session came two days after a US drone strike on a convoy at Baghdad airport which killed Iranian Military Commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Deputy Chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

“There is no need for the presence of American forces after defeating Daesh,” said Ammar al-Shibli, a lawmaker and member of the parliamentary legal committee.

“We have our own armed forces which are capable of protecting the country,” he said, Reuters reported.

Around 5,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, most of them in an advisory capacity.

During a massive funeral procession for General Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, and al-Muhandis in Baghdad, al- Kadhimiya, Karbala and Najaf, hundreds of thousands of angry Iraqi mourners carried placards demanding an immediate expulsion of “U.S. terrorists” from their country.

In the face of the Iraqi people’s will, the Iraqi parliament made a historic test about by voting to expel the U.S. troops.

Expelling Iraqi troops had turned into a “national demand” after the terrorist attacks on the top Iranian and Iraqi military commanders. 

Following the terrorist attack by the US, Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had asked the parliament to take a decision based on Article 58 of the Iraqi constitution about the “illegal action” of the US army.

The Prime Minister said the US move was a violation of the Iraqi sovereignty and an affront to national pride.

He called the US act a dangerous move which will trigger another devastating war in Iraq and the region.

Since the US terrorist attack, rival political leaders had been calling for expulsion of US troops from Iraq in an unusual show of unity among factions.

Hadi al-Amiri, the top candidate to succeed al-Muhandis, repeated his call for US troops to leave Iraq on Saturday during an elaborate funeral procession for those killed in the attack.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri has expressed anger over the US attack on the military convoy, saying, “What happened around Baghdad airport was an open violation of the Iraqi territorial sovereignty and violation of international agreements.”

He added, “Any security and military operation should be with the agreement of the government.”

Faleh al-Fayad, Iraq’s national security advisor and chief of Hashd al-Shaabi or PMF), has also said it is the duty of the Iraqi government and judiciary to respond to the violation of the Iraqi sovereignty.  

Also, Abdelkarim Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Armed Forces has said "these strikes represent a treacherous stab in the back."

Protests erupt in United States after assignation of Soleimani in a US attack in Iraq

According to a Reuters report, groups of protesters took to the streets in Washington and other cities of United States on Saturday to condemn the air strike in Iraq ordered by President Donald Trump that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Trump’s decision to send about 3,000 more troops to the Middle East.

“No justice, no peace. US out of the Middle East,” hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel a few blocks away.

Similar protests were held in New York, Chicago and other cities. Organizers at Code Pink, a women-led anti-war group, said protests were scheduled on Saturday in numerous US cities and towns.

Protesters in Washington held signs that read “No war or sanctions on Iran!” and “US troops out of Iraq!”

Speakers at the Washington event included actress and activist Jane Fonda, who last year was arrested at a climate change protest on the steps of the US Capitol.

“The younger people here should know that all of the wars fought since you were born have been fought over oil,” Fonda, 82, told the crowd, adding that “we can’t anymore lose lives and kill people and ruin an environment because of oil.”

“Going to a march doesn’t do a lot, but at least I can come out and say something, that I’m opposed to this stuff,” said protestor Steve Lane of Bethesda, Maryland. “And maybe if enough people do the same thing, he (Trump) will listen.”

Soleimani, regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran, was killed in the US strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport on Friday in a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies.

Public opinion polls show Americans in general have been opposed to US military interventions overseas. A survey last year by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 27% of Americans believe military interventions make the United States safer, and nearly half said they make the country less safe.