Saturday, July 04, 2020

Did Mustafa al-Kadhimi just buy himself a little more time?

The ASSOCIATED PRESS reports today in the following video.




The Turkish government continues its assault on Iraq -- bombing the country and sending foot soldiers in.  Both actions are a violation of Iraq's sovereignty and a violation of international law.  Major news, Zhelwan Z. Wali (RUDAW) reports:


The spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi condemned Ankara for its ongoing military operation across the north of the country in a strongly worded statement released Saturday evening. 

"We strongly reject and condemn these actions that harm the close, long-standing relations between the two friendly nations,"  Ahmed Mulla Talal wrote in a statement published to Telegram, urging  for an "immediate" halt to Ankara's offensive.

On Arabic social media, it's being noted that it has taken Mustafa forever to wade in on this topic but it's also being noted that there is hope that this is a first step.

Iraq is under attack.  Now let's not pretend that the US isn't an occupying force, it very much is.  So are other members of the coalition.  But Turkey is a neighbor and it's made no effort to even pretend to respect Iraq's borders.  It also keeps announcing daily that it has killed X number of terrorists when the reality is that they are killing civilians and they never bother to note that -- let alone apologize for it.  

It's not just a violation of international law, it's also an insult to many Iraqis.  And they've watched as Mustafa has been silent.  Some members of Parliament, and certainly Iraq's Foreign Minister, have spoken out.  But eyes have been on Mustafa.

He's the prime minister.  He's the new prime minister, in fact.  He became prime minister May 7th and the previous one was ousted because he failed as a leader -- he failed to inspire, he failed to root out corruption, he failed in every regard.

Mustafa should have come out strongly against what the Turkish government is doing.

His failure to do so has made him look weak.  Because he is so new in the job, today's announcement is not being viewed as too-little-too-late.  It appears a significant amount of commentators on social media -- many who had slammed his previously -- are willing to take a step back and see if he has anything else to offer on this topic.

He needs to have something.

He can even fail, my opinion, in any action he takes against Turkey and the people of Iraq would be okay with it knowing that he had acted.

So he could threaten to cut off some export or to close some roadway the two share.  If he made the threat and it didn't stop Turkey, I think many Iraqis would be grateful that he at least made an effort.

US media continues its attempts to splinter Iraq.  When they cover what Turkey's doing, they try to act as though it's 'northern Iraq.'  To many Iraqis, it's just "Iraq."  That feeling has been missing in US reports on the issue.  There is a longing for an Iraqi identity.  

We saw that in the 2010 elections -- which is why Joe Biden's overturning that election was so appalling.  That feeling continues to exist.

Now in northern Iraq, there is no doubt that the bulk of those living there consider themselves not a part of Iraq and want to be their own independent nation.

But we're not talking about that.  We're talking about the rest of the country, the majority of the country.  And they are seeing this attack as an attack on Iraq.

Mustafa hasn't managed to do anything at present.

He did arrest members of a militia and then quickly backed down on it.  Not before photos of him were burned by militia members in Baghdad.  Remember, the militias are part of the Iraqi military.  The previous prime minister made that happen.  So you had the militia -- members of the Iraqi military -- burning photos of the prime minister -- commander in chief over the military -- in the streets of Baghdad.  That was an outrageous insult to the office of prime minister.

It did not help Mustafa look strong.

And he's also presiding over a country that is being especially heavy hit by the coronavirus pandemic.  Hiwa Shilani (KURDISTAN 24) reports, " The Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment On Saturday reported it had recorded more than 2,300 new coronavirus infections, 106 deaths, and 1,477 recoveries in 24 hours."

Mustfa's facing a lot of issues and problems.  He needs to address them.  Chief among them, an election law needs to be passed so that parliamentary elections can be held.  

The words regarding Turkey are long overdue but if he backs these words up in any real manner, it's likely that he will garner support from the Iraqi people.  Otherwise?  Don't be surprised if calls emerge for him to resign -- especially if he can't get an election law passed.



The following sites updated:






Posted by at