NATO Deployments To Iraq Are Supposed To Put Pressure On Iran - They Will Instead Become Hostages

 

moon of  alabama

On Thursday, after a meeting of NATO defense ministers, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced a larger occupation force for Iraq:

Today, we decided to expand NATO’s training mission in Iraq. To support the Iraqi forces as they fight terrorism and ensure that ISIS does not return.

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.

Our presence is conditions-based, and increases in troop numbers will be incremental.

Our mission is at the request of the Iraqi government. It is carried out with full respect for Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

I spoke with Prime Minister Al—Kadhimi this week and assured him that everything will be done in full consultation with the Iraqi authorities.

There is no doubt that the idea for this is coming from the U.S. side:

Earlier this week, a senior US defense official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that Pentagon leadership was “enthusiastic about and welcomes NATO’s increased focus on Iraq.”

Al-Kadhimi is a weak prime minister Iraq has asked for a new $6 billion IMF loan. The U.S. will have conditioned that on a request for an 'incremental' NATO occupation force.

After the U.S. murder of Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020 the Iraqi parliament adopted a resolution that called for all foreign troops to leave the country. The U.S. has ignored that. Resistance fighters in Iraq then started to fire missiles on U.S. occupied encampments. Earlier this week a rocket barrage hit a U.S. base in Erbil:

A volley of projectiles targeted the main military base inside Erbil’s airport, which hosts foreign troops deployed as part of the US-led coalition that has helped Iraq fight the armed group ISIL (ISIS) since 2014.

But the rockets struck all over the city’s northwestern sector early Tuesday, killing one foreign civilian contractor and wounding at least nine others, including an American soldier.
...
A shadowy group calling itself Awliya al-Dam – or the Guardians of the Blood – claimed responsibility and said it would continue to attack “occupation” American forces in Iraq.

The attack was the first in nearly two months after a series of similar incidents – blamed on pro-Iran Shia militias – directed at Western military installations or diplomatic missions in Iraq since 2019.

Like the at least 2.500 U.S. troops in Iraq the new NATO 'trainers' in Iraq will become targets of such attacks. The attacks 'by Iranian proxies' will then become the justification to send more 'incremental' NATO troops. After a few month a full NATO division will be on standby at Iran's western border.

There are also 10,000 NATO troops on Iran's eastern boarder in Afghanistan. These are supposed to leave by May 1 according to the peace agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban. But that agreement also requires negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is persistently stalling those talks. He hopes to keep foreign troops in Afghanistan to further feast on the bribes and 'development' monies that come with them.

Some factions in the Iraqi parliament have protested against Al-Kadhimi's troop request to NATO. But there is no unity in the rather chaotic Iraqi political environment. But outside of parliament there are many Iraqis who really want to see all foreign troops gone. They will take their own measures to achieve that.

It is likely that the U.S. sees the additional troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as a pressure point that can be used against Iran in the rather hopeless attempt to renegotiate the nuclear agreement with Iran into a larger surrender document. Iran will not surrender.

The NATO troops will become hostages of U.S. policies and may well take casualties.

Why the European NATO countries agreed to put themselves into this no-win situation is beyond me.

Posted by b on February 20, 2021 at 17:41 UTC | Permalink

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