Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Will Kerry's ignoring Iraq bite him in the butt?

All Iraq News notes Nouri al-Maliki is planning to deliver a speech on Syria today.  Hou Qiang (Xinhua) reports, "Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki on Wednesday launched a new peace initiative to end the Syrian crisis and called on the Arab countries and the world to back his plan.
Maliki said at his weekly statement that his nine-point initiative is a modified version of Iraq's former peace plan, which was rejected by the Syrian opposition last year.  The plan includes a series of proposals like stopping arming the both sides of the conflict, withdrawal of all foreign fighters, supporting investigation into the use of chemical weapons and rejection of military intervention in Syria, as well as establishing a fund for the return of Syrian refugees."

Hmm.  Too bad John Kerry spent the last two years wooing foreign leaders to go to war with Syria instead of doing his job and overseeing the US mission in Iraq to increase diplomatic ties.

How sad for John if Nouri's remarks today shake the resolve of other leaders to go to war on Syria.  But that is possible and it's what can happen when you fail to do your job.  As Secretary of State, Kerry should have been interacting with Iraq regularly. Didn't happen.

It's not just Nouri.  Yesterday, Wael Grace (Al Mada) reported that Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc was saying that a US military attack on Syria would make the already worsening security situation in Iraq spiral out of control.  And that is true.

Ayad Allawi's writing about Syria on his Facebook page and noting that Iraq shouldn't be expected to stop aid to Syria from Iran.  He's right.  Iraq can't even secure their own air space.  They lack the planes and the training.

In the fall of 2011, the State Dept began taking over the US mission in Iraq in preparation of the military drawdown.  The Dept has been given billions each Fiscal Year for that.  And yet they seem to have no idea of what goes on Iraq or what the sentiment there is.

Iraq is the best argument against attacking Syria.

Not just because we're seeing similar lies in the effort to sell the attack.

Also not only because Iraq is a testament to how US governmental 'help' has made another country worse, not better.

But the main reason is because an attack's going to make Iraq worse.  Attacking Syria means more refugees entering Iraq, means more al Qaeda and other fighters going through Iraq to enter and leave Syria, means the region is in turmoil and brings back the level of fear (which caused great mental stress in Iraq as studies demonstrated) that was present throughout the US occupation.  There is no way Iraq wins from an attack on Syria.

 Wael Grace (Al Mada) reports that in anticipation of a US strike on Syria, Sahwas are being deployed to Mosul in expectation of an influx of refugees and, more to the point, to assist if the civil war in Syria spills over -- a fear that many Iraqis in the area fear.

Meanwhile NINA reports that a Latifiya home invasion yesterday resulted in the shooting of "members of two families of two brothers, killing six children, two women and two men" before blowing up the home.  Kareem Raheem, Isabel Coles and Alison Williams (Reuters) quote  family member Haneen Mudhhir stating,  "Gunmen broke into our house overnight and shot my father four times in the head, they killed my two brothers, they killed my cousin, they were shooting everyone they saw, I escaped from the back door."  BBC News explains, "Latifiya is in a religiously-mixed region that came to be known as the 'Triangle of Death' at the peak of Iraq's insurgency in 2006 and 2007."  NINA also notes 3 Sahwa were shot dead in Ramadi with another three left injured, a Mosul car bombing claimed the lives of 5 police officers and left four people injured, and 3 Tarmiya bombings claimed the lives of 5 Iraqi soldiers and left seven more injured.   "And in the capital’s eastern Basmaya district,"  Press TV adds, "unknown gunmen killed a mechanic and his son. "


We'll close with this from Margaret Kimberley's "Obama's Accomplices to War Crimes" (Black Agenda Report):

The United States will soon be at war against Syria. The president told us so. He also told us that he didn’t care if the United Nations Security Council went along with his plans or not. He said he would ask Congress for approval but also implied that it wouldn’t really matter if he didn’t get it from them either. As we have pointed out in Black Agenda Report, it isn’t just Assad who Obama wants out, but the rules of domestic and international law that stand in his way of keeping the imperial project alive.
There are many villains in this tale. First is president Obama himself, who like all presidents is nothing but the smoothest talking of all the bottom feeders who auditioned for the job. Then of course are the other ambitious yet craven people who want nothing more than to be in the embrace of the powerful. Democrats are presenting dubious rationales for backing Obama to the hilt as he plans Syria’s destruction. Bill Richardson, a former Democratic governor and United Nations ambassador resurrected George W. Bush when he called for “a coalition of the willing” to attack Syria. How pathetic. Richardson couldn’t even come up with his own trope.
The black misleadership scoundrels are also worthy of scorn in this crime. Van Jones was tossed under the wheels of Obama’s bus yet has sung his praises ever since. As a “left” commentator on CNN he said, “If you kill Assad right now, wonderful.” Jones also claimed that the United States overthrew a dictator in Iran in 1953. Of course Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected and Jones was left to feebly explain that he meant to use the word leader.
Jones wasn’t alone in trashing black Americans’ historic opposition to military aggression. We didn’t really need further proof that black politics has reached its nadir under Obama, but Eleanor Holmes Norton provided us with more. The non-voting Washington DC delegate to congress had this to say about why Obama will probably win congressional approval for more death and destruction. “If [Obama] gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.” Not satisfied at her public expression of stupidity she had this to say. “At the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.” So shallow and shameful were Norton’s words that one might be tempted to support the district’s powerless status.


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