Adoption of the resolution, urging the expulsion of the US military from Iraq, marks a very important step for the country, yet making them actually leave will likely take more than that, analysts have told RT.
The resolution, calling for withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, was adopted by the Iraqi parliament on Sunday. The non-binding document that the government is yet to consider came in response to the assassination of Iranian Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani as well as other Iranian and Iraqi military officials, including the deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The high-profile officials were killed in a US airstrike on the outskirts of Baghdad earlier this week.
Washington appeared unnerved by the resolution. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the American military presence in the country, insisting that the Iraqis actually enjoy it.
“We are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there to fight the counterterror campaign,” Pompeo told ‘Fox News Sunday.’ The US top diplomat, however, apparently missed the part when Washington actually attacked the Iraqi forces. The PMF militia, which has been the key force in fighting the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) is a part of the country’s military, author and analyst Nicolas J.S. Davies has said.
“There’s now a confrontation between the Iraqi government and the US government. The US has already attacked Iraq’s armed forces, that’s how this began,” Davies told RT. “The Iraqi government has every right to ask them to leave, and if the US resists this request then we have a huge confrontation.”
Killing of Soleimani and his associates came not only in a blatant disregard of international norms, but breached the deal between Baghdad and Washington, Davies explained, thus the latest move by the country’s parliament is not very surprising.
“The US is really just behaving like a rogue state at this point. All of it is just a flagrant violation of international law in so many ways,” he said, mentioning that the US troops are in the country at the invitation of Iraqi government.
The parliament’s decision is an “enormous development” for the country that moved a step closer to ending the enduring occupation by the US forces, as well as for the whole region, political analyst and journalist Andre Vltchek believes.
“We never saw the US army to depart just because the parliament of the occupied country would vote that it should. So, this is not going to be easy for Iraq to get rid of the US and NATO military,” Vltchek told RT.
Washington is likely to recourse to “all sorts of tricks” to try and stay in the country, Vltchek warned. Transferring the forces into the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region – “as they did in the past” – is one of them. Still, the situation in the region has changed since the times of the 2003 invasion and the local powers and groups appear to show significantly more unity, and the death of Soleimani might potentially become a further unifying moment for it.
The whole endeavor to try and expel US troops from Iraq might still flop, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof has warned, since the country’s politicians – including the caretaker PM, who spearheaded it now – have been very reluctant to actually do so before the US attack.
“Prior to the assassination of the General Soleimani, there was dissent within these Shia ranks, and that’s why you had no decision, because for months, there has been discussion of doing just this – possibly removing foreign troops, namely the US in particular to avoid the very problem we’re having now,” he said.
The local forces have already been deemed capable of tackling the existing terrorist threat on their own – and now the US troops are “basically booted out” instead of departing after an accomplished mission. Still, there’s no certainty that they will actually depart – which will turn them once again into de-jure occupiers of the country, Maloof said.
“Now the question is – if ordered out, will the US forces leave? … If they do not, then they’ll become an occupying force once again.”
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