US, Hands Off Iraq

The growing lawlessness around the world of the roguish administration of the US, ranging from Venezuela to North Korea and to West Asia, has been condemned by the free world. On Thursday last, Iran’s English daily ‘Kayhan International’ in its viewpoint column written by S. Nawabzadeh and titled “US, Hands off Iraq”, warned Washington against messing up the region.

The recent aerial and rocket attack on the Iraq-Syria border by intruding US forces that resulted in the martyrdom of almost 50 fighters of the Seyyed ash-Shuhada Brigade of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and injury to scores of others, at a time when the Takfiri terrorists are on the retreat on all fronts, once again exposed Uncle Sam’s complicity in the crimes of the Saudi-created and Zionist-supported cannibalistic outfits that are known by the Arabic acronym ‘Daesh’.

Washington, as usual denied its latest act of state terrorism, while the dastardly Daesh was quick to claim responsibility for the attack on PMU, when the fact of the matter is that these cowardly elements lack the guts to attack any unit of the heroic popular forces.

The questions that arise are: What is the goal of the US presence in Iraq, and what right has it to illegally cross into neighbouring Syria to openly indulge in acts of state terrorism in violation of the UN Charter, by directing armed outfits in Raqqa, Tanf, Deir ez-Zour and elsewhere?

Has the government of President Bashar al-Assad invited the Americans, as it invited Iran and Russia, to help it crush the terrorists of various hues and colours that have seized control of large swathes of Syrian territory with the support of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the illegal Zionist entity?

In continuation the newspaper asked: Did Prime Minister Haidar al-Ebadi of Iraq, who made the fatal mistake of seeking military assistance from the US to liberate Mosul – ironically from terrorists backed by the US itself – give a free reign to the Americans to bomb anyone at will, whether civilians or Iraq’s own military personnel, especially the popular forces known in Arabic as Hashd ash-Sha’bi?

Why the UN Security Council which makes a hue and cry over North Korea’s testing of ICBMs (deterrents to any surprise attack by the dangerously nuclear- armed US), is silent on Washington’s unabated crimes in West and East Asia, including the illegal presence of US fleets in the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Bab al-Mandeb, when there are no Chinese or Iranian ships patrolling the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US?

Kayhan said: For the sake of regional and global peace, these questions not just require the right answers but solutions to practically end US lawlessness around the globe.

It pointed out: This was not the first instance of the Yankees attacking Iraqi forces – sometimes denying their attack and sometimes pretending it to be ‘friendly fire’ – and it will not be the last time, despite Haidar al-Ebadi’s remarks that the US forces in future would require permission from the Baghdad government to drop ordinances.

Without the least doubt, the US will not heed any such directives from the Iraqi government and there is plenty of documented evidence over the past two years of US aircraft dropping crates of arms for Daesh and other terrorist outfits on the pretext of bombing their positions.

Moreover, said the daily: Washington has never hidden its disdain for the PMU, which were formed on the edict of Iraq’s Supreme Religious Authority, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Sistani, to save the country from the Daesh onslaught, and which proved their mettle during the liberation of Falluja, Tikrit, Ramadi, and now Mosul, while the US-trained forces time and again fled whenever the terrorists flexed their inflated muscles.

Contrary to the fabricated reports in the western and Arab media of the Hashd ash-Sha’bi indulging in sectarianism and summary executions (proven terrorists do deserve that), these popular forces, who are not confined to the Shi’a majority of the country but include Sunni Muslims, ethnic Kurds, Christians and the Izadis, have behaved in the most disciplinary and humanitarian manner with the refugees and the men, women, and children delivered from Daesh oppression.

These are the very factors, especially the multi-ethnic and multi-religious component of the PMU which is indeed a guarantee against the neo-colonial plot to balkanize Iraq – including the unpopular move in the Kurdish areas for referendum – that has made the White House and its clients in the Arab world rave and rant against the Hashd ash-Sha’bi.

Another important point to note is that, a strong PMU will ensure Iraq’s sovereignty and independence, while being a bulwark against any attempt by sold out general of the regular army, which may still have Ba’thist elements in its midst, to stage a military coup and topple the elected government, on the orders of the US or any Arab regime – as happened in Egypt when the first-ever elected president, Mohammad Morsi, was overthrown by General Abdul-Fattah as-Sisi with the backing of Saudi Arabia and the US.

In view of these facts, said Kayhan, it is time for the Iraqi government to summon the courage and show the exit to the ‘invitees’ from the other side of the world who have not just overstayed in the host country but have violated the norms of hospitality.

One last word. The Seyyed ash-Shuhada Brigade which derives inspiration from the Chief of Martyrs, Imam Husain (AS), has vowed retaliation. Sooner or later it will definitely make the Americans pay for their crimes, as was the fate of the perpetrators of the Tragedy of Karbala in this very land of Iraq – and of Saddam in our own times – whether the quixotic US president, Donald Trump, his war minister ‘Mad Dog’ James Mattis, or the uniformed goons on the ground priding on their state-of-the-art military technology in the war theatres, like it or not.

As for Iran’s support for the people and government of Iraq in their struggle against terrorism and foreign hegemony, this is something natural and based upon good-neighbourly ties dating almost three thousand years, which no aggressor has been able to permanently disrupt, whether Alexander of Macedonia and the Seleucid Greeks, whether the Romans during their unsuccessful forays into Mesopotamia for over several centuries, whether Omayyads during their 90-year tyranny, whether the Ottoman Turks who had to contend with the constant backing of the Iraqi people by the Safavids, the Afshars, the Zendis and early Qajarids, whether the British colonialists, or whether the Ba’th minority regime.

AS/MG