Can The US And Iraq Move Beyond Military Ties? – Analysis

Iraq's Mohammed Al-Sudani. Photo Credit: Mehr News Agency

 April 13, 2024  

By James Durso

Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in the erroneous belief that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and was allied with al-Qaida, the terror group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. 

The U.S. created an occupation authority, but failed to restore order and helped spawn the insurgency that bedeviled it by dismissing the entire Iraqi military and the most experienced civil servants. Coalition troops fought a losing battle, regained their footing with the 2007 troop surge, and finally departed in 2011. U.S. troops returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State and they remain there to this day, though ISIS was largely eliminated by 2019.

In January 2020, Iraq’s parliament voted on a nonbinding measure to remove the U.S. troops from Iraq, but the Americans remain at the request of the Iraqi government. However, in response to the parliament’s 2020 vote, Iraq and the International Coalition changed the mission of the troops from a combat mission to one of advisory and training.

Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, will meet U.S. President Joe Biden on April 15, primarily to discuss the U.S. troop presence. 

Though the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission is reviewing the troop presence issue, will the U.S. side stall fearing it may have to agree to a smaller presence and constrained operations? Possibly, so Sudani may want a public commitment from Biden to force the march to a constructive, timely decision.

Aside from the troops issue, Sudani wants to strengthen Baghdad’s ties with Washington, which he considers Iraq’s top bilateral relationship, and to add an economic dimension to Iraq’s ties with America.

When Americans think of Iraq in economic terms it’s all about the oil, but in November 2023 ExxonMobil, America’s biggest oil company, exited Iraq with nothing to show for a decade-long effort. The departure will lower the expectation of other U.S. companies, but Sudani wants to revitalize economic ties, and he will be accompanied by many of the country’s top businessmen.

U.S.-Iraq trade has room for growth. In 2022, the U.S. exported $897 million in goods, the top product being automobiles. Iraq, in turn, exported $10.3 billion in goods, most of it crude oil.

A key economic objective of Iraq is the $17 billion Development Road, an overland road and rail link from the Persian Gulf to Europe via Turkey, that will host free-trade zones along its length.

Biden and Sudani should consider the shape of the future U.S.-Iraq relationship, which has to now been governed by military considerations, and has become the best example of The Meddler’s Trap, “a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. …A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect.” 

Iraq is the only real democracy in the Arab world, and many young Iraqis want a separation of religion and state, something that should resonate with Americans and, Iraqis hope, cause the U.S. to deal with Iraq as Iraq, not a platform for operations against Syria and Iran, or to support Washington’s Kurdish clients.

Washington damaged itself in Iraq by killing Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020. Baghdad had moved the PMF, once a militia, into the government in 2016 (no doubt with American encouragement), so the killing of Muhandis, then a government official, increased popular support the PMF.

What are some clouds on the horizon for the U.S. and Iraq?

Corruption. Pervasive corruption in Iraq has slowed economic development and subjected Iraqi citizens to ineffective governance. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International ranked Iraq 154 of 180, a slight improvement from 2022 when it ranked 157 of 180.

Iraq was previously described by TI as: “Among the worst countries on corruption and governance indicators, with corruption risks exacerbated by lack of experience in the public administration, weak capacity to absorb the influx of aid money, sectarian issues and lack of political will for anti-corruption efforts.”

Sudani has not ignored corruption, calling it one of the country’s greatest challenges and “no less serious than the threat of terrorism.”

Elizabeth Tsurkov. Tsurkov is a Russian-Israeli academic who was kidnapped in 2023 by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-influenced Iraqi militia. Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University in the U.S., entered Iraq with her Russian passport and did not disclose that she was an Israeli citizen and Israeli Defense Forces veteran. (A 2022 Iraqi law criminalized any relations with Israel.)

Tsurkov’s family wants the Biden administration to designate Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism for failing to secure her release. Sudani’s office announced an investigation into the matter and the issue may arise when Sudani meets Biden, though the best outcome for Iraq and the U.S. is a Russia-brokered deal between Israel and Iran.

If Biden designates Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism that will irreparably damage the relationship and open the door for China.

China. The U.S. is Iraq’s top relationship, but not its only relationship. China will respond to the ostracism of Baghdad by extending invitations to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, the latter of which can fund infrastructure projects through the New Development Bank. PetroChina replaced ExxonMobil in West Qurna 1, one of Iraq’s biggest oil fields, and is ideally positioned for further expansion. And Iraq was the “leading beneficiary” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2021.

Sudani has said Iraq should not be a cockpit of conflict for the U.S, and Iran, but when Iran is concerned it, in Washington, is always 1979. Though Sudani has many challenges to face, Biden has more: he must reorient his government away from its colonial mentality in West Asia, recognize that Baghdad must reach a modus vivendi with Tehran that may not be to Washington’s pleasure, and not smooth the way for Beijing’s greater penetration of West Asia.

This article was published at Responsible Statecraft

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James Durso (@james_durso) is a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Central Asia.

Why did the US and allies invade Iraq, 20 years ago?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq toppled President Saddam Hussein

On 20 March 2003, US and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.

The US said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to international peace, but most countries refused to support military action against it.

Why did the US want to invade Iraq?

In the Gulf War of 1990-1991, the US had led a multinational coalition which forced invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Afterwards, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 687 ordering Iraq to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) - a term used to describe nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles.

In 1998, Iraq suspended cooperation with UN weapons inspectors, and the US and UK responded with air strikes.

After al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, President George W Bush's administration started making plans to invade Iraq.

President Bush claimed Saddam was continuing to stockpile and manufacture WMDs and that Iraq was part of an international "axis of evil", along with Iran and North Korea.

In October 2002, the US Congress authorised the use of military force against Iraq.

"Many people in Washington believed that there was significant evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that it posed a genuine threat," says Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas Programme at Chatham House, a foreign affairs think tank in London.

In February 2003, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell asked the UN Security Council to give the go-ahead for military action against Iraq, saying it was violating previous resolutions with its alleged WMD programme.

However, he did not persuade the Council. Most of its members wanted weapons inspectors from the UN and International Energy Authority - who had gone to Iraq in 2002 - to carry out more work there to find evidence of WMDs.

The US said it would not wait for the inspectors to report, and assembled a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq.

Who supported the war?

Of the 30 countries in the coalition, the UK, Australia and Poland participated in the invasion.

The UK sent 45,000 troops, Australia sent 2,000 troops and Poland sent 194 special forces members.

Kuwait allowed the invasion to be launched from its territory.

Spain and Italy gave diplomatic support to the US-led coalition, along with several east European nations in the "Vilnius Group", who said they believed that Iraq had a WMD programme and was violating UN resolutions.

What allegations did the US and UK make against Iraq?

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN in 2003 that Iraq had "mobile labs" for producing biological weapons.

However, he acknowledged in 2004 that the evidence for this "appears not to be... that solid".

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destructions

The UK government made public an intelligence dossier claiming that Iraqi missiles could be readied within 45 minutes to hit UK targets in the eastern Mediterranean.

The UK's then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said it was "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein was continuing to produce WMD.

The two countries relied heavily on the claims of two Iraqi defectors - a chemical engineer called Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi and an intelligence officer called Maj Muhammad Harith - who said they had first-hand knowledge of Iraq's WMD programme.

Both men later said they had fabricated their evidence because they wanted the allies to invade and oust Saddam.

Who refused to support the war?

Two neighbours of the US, Canada and Mexico, refused to support it.


Germany and France, two key US allies in Europe, also refused support.




French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin said military intervention would be "the worst possible solution".


Turkey - a fellow Nato member and neighbour of Iraq - refused to let the US and allies use its airbases.


Middle Eastern countries which had supported the US against Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War, such as Saudi Arabia, did not support its invasion in 2003.



"The Gulf Arab states thought the plan was crazy," says Professor Gilbert Achcar, an expert in Middle Eastern politics at University of London SOAS.

"They were worried about Iran getting control of Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime."

What happened in the war?

At dawn on 20 March 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom began with 295,000 US and allied troops invading Iraq across its border with Kuwait.

70,000 members of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia fought Iraqi forces in the north of the country.

By May, Iraq's army had been defeated and its regime overthrown. Saddam Hussein was later captured, tried and executed.

However, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

In 2004, the country was engulfed by a sectarian insurgency. In later years, a civil war broke out between Iraq's Sunni and Shi'a Muslim factions.

US troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

It is estimated that 461,000 people died in Iraq from war-related causes between 2003 and 2011 and that the war cost the US $3 trillion.

"America lost a lot of credibility from this war," says Dr Karin von Hippel, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

"You still hear people saying, twenty years later: why do we want to believe American intelligence?"




Shock And War: Iraq 20 Years On
The BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera seeks to find new answers to why the Iraq war happened, what it meant, and its legacy today.
Download all 10 episodes on BBC Sounds

Iraqi government should consider more dams to prevent rivers vanishing: Iraqi engineer

An Iraqi expert cautions that corruption remains the biggest challenge in front of Iraq's reconstruction


An Iraqi youth strolls through the receding waters of the 

Tigris River in Baghdad on 12 July 2023. [Getty]

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
31 July, 2023

The reconstruction sector in Iraq is facing critical challenges, mainly corruption and the lack of governmental follow-ups and planning, which in turn is jeopardising the country and depriving it of international loans, the director of a famous Iraqi engineering consultancy company, Midhat Zwayen, told The New Arab during an exclusive interview.

Decades of war and corruption have made Iraq face serious infrastructure and environmental problems, including poor water quality, soil salinity, air and water pollution, climate change impacts and the threat of water shortages.

Iraq ranked 157 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2022.

The New Arab interviewed Midhat Zwayen, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Dijlah Consulting Engineers. Established in 1993, the company was awarded multiple projects such as hospitals, roads and bridges, water treatment plants, and electrical transmission and substations. The company has been involved in major infrastructure projects throughout Iraq, such as the new building of the Central Bank of Iraq and the Imam Ali Shrine extension.

"Corruption is a big challenge; the Iraqi government needs to address that as soon as possible because if it continues, the funders will not fund Iraq forever," Zwayen said. "The private sector in Iraq is fragile; we do not deal with corruption because that would ruin our reputation, especially at the consultancy; we have no interaction with any kind of corruption, which is why we are famous in the international community."

Regarding how they did their projects in Iraq, he clarified that they focus on international and bank funds, indicating that most of the mega projects in Iraq have been funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOCA), or the United Nations.

He said the bank controls funds by those agencies, and the Iraqi government or the militias cannot impose their will on how the funds should be spent.

He said his company had been kicked out from some of the projects with the Iraqi government because, as he opined, "We rejected certain behaviours they do."

Zwayen said that according to his sources, although JICA funded some finished projects in Iraq years ago, now the agency is not ready to give loans to the country because they do not feel the Iraqi government takes care of the money they gave them, like follow-up on the projects.

"Iraq's infrastructure is devastated; Iraq needs international funds to help us rebuild because we do not have experience, knowledge, and technology, and that is how we try to mediate with the Iraqi government," he noted.

Despite spending billions of dollars on energy projects in Iraq, the country still suffers from total blackouts and mainly depends on neighbouring Iran to import gas for generating electricity. Utilising renewables, especially solar, is to the minimum.

Authorities said a fire at an electricity substation in southern Iraq triggered a nationwide power outage Saturday just as demand peaks amid the searing summer heat."Renewable energy takes time to build and needs experience that we lack. Any Iraqi government prioritises power generation for now because it cannot survive without it," Zwayen stressed.

Most housing projects in Iraq are still not benefiting from new technologies of heat isolation. Hence most of the country's energy and power generation is lost in cooling systems in summer and warming the houses in Winter. "Iraq's Engineers Association has all these specifications and have submitted it to the Iraqi builders, but again builders often disregard it as it costs more and because of corruption they keep the money for their pockets", Zwayen outlined regarding the issue.

Regarding Iraq's environmental issues, specifically water pollution, he said Iraq's main two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, "are too polluted, first because we dump sewage to the rivers and lack sewage processing projects. Secondly, we are losing water flowing to wash away the sewage to the ocean. As Iraq's population has increased to 41 million, this is crucial and should be addressed. Otherwise, our rivers will die soon."

The two rivers are on the brink of running dry, as Turkey and Iran restrict water flow to Iraq.

"Following 2003, none of the Iraqi governments came up with an idea on how to deal with this, except for blaming the neighbouring countries; they will not do everything for you because they manage water efficiently, and we don't. Again, the situation deteriorates in Iraq because of corruption," Zwayen said."Turkey and Iran's excuses for restructuring the water flow might be somehow logical when they say we flow the water for you and what you are doing with it and why you waste it."

Drought threatens to render boatbuilding extinct in Iraq

Environment and Climate

Azhar Al-Rubaie

"To deal with this issue, Iraq must build more dams to keep the sewage flowing into the ocean. Iraq needs to reconsider building the Bekhme Dam. I do not know why they do not reconsider it, and finishing this dam should be the priority of any Iraqi government," he added.

The Bekhme Dam is an unfinished multi-purpose dam on the Great Zab 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

The dam's primary purpose was to produce hydropower and manage flooding in Iraq. Construction on the dam started in 1979 but was halted permanently due to wars and the Western embargo on the country. Following the 1991 Kurdish uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish ruling parties smuggled all reconstruction tools and power-generating turbines at the unfinished dam to neighbouring Iran.

Provincial elections have been scheduled to take place in 15 Iraqi provinces on 18 December, but many Iraqis are reluctant to renew their biometrics to participate in the vote.

Regarding Iraq's democracy, Zwayen stresses that "until now, leaders in Iraq, from a general manager to the president or the prime minister, did not understand the concept of democracy; it is linked to the economy, you need to have an open economy and an open investment." He also emphasised that Iraqi leaders think democracy means "you do what you like."

"That is not true; in a democracy, there are rules; if we don't have a strong understanding of democracy, then we will see militias in Iraq, just as we see it now," he added.

 

Restart of Kurdistan Oil Exports Still in Limbo

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Feb 28, 2025

Despite assurances from the federal Iraqi government that the resumption of oil exports from Kurdistan is imminent, the foreign oil firms operating in the semi-autonomous Iraqi region said on Friday they would not be resuming oil exports today.

Last week, Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani said that Iraq and Kurdistan expect to complete all work to resume oil exports from the semi-autonomous region by the end of March, following a two-year hiatus due to a dispute over authority over crude flows.

Oil exports from Kurdistan have now been halted for nearly two years, after they were shut in since March 2023 due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports.

The resumption of Kurdistan’s exports would add about 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) to overall Iraqi oil supply, although it is not clear yet how much of this would be allocated to international markets and how much would be kept for domestic consumption in Iraq.

On Friday, Iraq’s federal government said it would announce the resumption of Kurdistan’s oil exports within hours. Initially, 185,000 bpd of crude is expected to be exported by Iraq’s state oil marketing company SOMO.

However, the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), which groups foreign oil producers accounting for 60% of Kurdistan’s crude production, said on Friday that “APIKUR member companies do not have agreements that would lead to resuming oil exports today.”

“As has been repeatedly made clear, APIKUR member companies remain prepared to immediately resume exports as soon as formal agreements are reached to provide surety of payment for past and future exports consistent with our existing contractual legal and commercial terms,” the association said, adding that “There has not yet been any outreach in this regard to APIKUR member companies.”

Foreign oil producers in Kurdistan want firm agreements and assurances before resuming exports, while Baghdad is being pressured by the U.S. to allow Kurdish supply on the market, as the Trump Administration is looking to force a significant reduction of Iranian oil exports under the “maximum pressure” campaign.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

 Is Iraq Now Looking To Russia To Further Develop Its Huge Gas Potential?

By Simon Watkins - Feb 25, 2025

• Iraq has considerable unexploited natural gas reserves.
• 
  
• Around three-quarters of Iraq’s proven reserves consist of ‘associated gas’ – a by-product of oilfield development.
• 
  
• Russia's huge oil and gas presence in neighboring Iran may give it an advantage in creating synergies in Iraq.

Iraq is committed to increasing investment in its gas sector as a key driver for economic growth, according to Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani recently. There is certainly sufficient potential there for the idea to become reality, with official estimates being that Iraq has proven reserves of conventional natural gas amounting to 3.5 trillion cubic metres (Tcm) or about 1.5% of the world total, placing Iraq 12th among global reserve-holders. Around three-quarters of Iraq’s proven reserves consist of ‘associated gas’ – a by-product of oilfield development. However, Iraq did not revise its figure for proven gas reserves in 2010 at the time of the upwards revision of proven oil reserves. Well-founded figures for non-associated gas were not provided at the time – or since – from the Iraqi oil and gas authorities either. However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that ultimately recoverable resources will be much larger than the official estimates of 3.5 Tcm – its estimate is 8.0 Tcm, of which around 30% is thought to be non-associated gas.

There are also three very good reasons for it to further develop these reserves, beginning with cold, hard cash. For many years, Iraq has essentially been burning billions of dollars of lost revenue every year by flaring off the gas produced from its oil drilling. However, in 2017 Baghdad signed up to the United Nations and World Bank's ‘Zero Routine Flaring’ initiative aimed at ending the routine flaring of associated gas by 2030. At that point, Iraq was second only to Russia in the amount of gas it wasted in this way, flaring 17.8 billion cubic metres (Bcm) of gas each year. That said, after six years in the programme, Iraq was still burning off 17.7 Bcm, although its position in the league table of global gas flaring offenders slipped to third, following a surge in flaring in Iran, which took second spot after Russia. This figure has reportedly fallen since the advent of TotalEnergies’ US$27bn four-pronged deal in Iraq, of which an initial investment of around US$10 billion is focused on the ‘Gas Growth Integrated Project’, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The basic aim of this is to capture associated gas and use it instead for domestic power needs and later for exports to generate cash for the budget.

Related: Trump’s Oil Tariffs Could Cost Foreign Producers $10 Billion Annually

The second reason is that by developing its gas potential, Iraq could finally build a world-class petrochemicals sector, in the first instance the Nebras Petrochemical Plant (NPP). This would require sustainable gas volumes of up to an average 28.3 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) so that ethane can be extracted on a reliable basis, providing sufficient volume for a viable petrochemicals plant of this scale. Ethane is preferable in this regard to naphtha (as Iraq’s Oil Ministry has often suggested) given that associated gas streams have a high concentration of ethane and when it is processed it yields the very-bankable ethylene with few by-products (mainly fuel gas) to process and manage. Additionally, the use of ethane would reduce the capital required for construction and minimise the complexity of the logistics and distribution requirements. Ethane was used in the development of Saudi Arabia’s master gas system that was also founded on associated gas, which was then fractionated and supplied as primary feedstock to the flagship Jubail Industrial City. The minimum volume required to lay the foundation for the advancement of Nebras was achieved as early as 2019/2020 in Shell’s gas project with the Basrah Gas Company. However, concerns over a lack of transparency in the contracts from various international oil companies interested in advancing the project over the years has hampered progress on the site. Nonetheless, according to several feasibility reports, a world-class petrochemicals sector in Iraq would require around US$40-50 billion to develop but would yield exponentially more than that in pure profits over the years.

The third good reason for Iraq to develop its associated gas rather than flare it off is that it will reduce its energy dependence on neighbouring Iran and encourage a surge of investment from U.S. firms into the bargain. As part of its relationship reconstruction efforts in Iraq as local resistance to its extended military presence in the country increased, the U.S. granted Iraq rolling exemptions to continue to use Iranian energy supplies. These continued even after Washington imposed further sanctions on such supplies following the U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (colloquially, ‘the nuclear deal’) in May 2018. Iraq’s exemptions were granted on the very specific understanding between Washington and Baghdad that it would gradually taper down its energy imports from its sanctioned neighbour, as also fully detailed in my latest book on the new global oil market order. However, from 2018 to now, Iraq has continued to import around 40% of its power needs through gas and electricity from Iran and last year even recently signed the longest ever deal (five years) to keep doing so.

The U.S.’s response to these continued breaches of trust on Iraq’s part have ranged from anger to fury, with a notable recent example at the time of the signing of the five-year deal being the imposition of a raft of sanctions on Iraq itself. Washington cited several Iraqi persons and institutions as being instruments in the funnelling of money to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, which was true. It added that the entities were continuing to exploit Iraq’s dependence on Iran as an electricity and gas source by smuggling Iranian petroleum through the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr and money laundering through Iraqi front companies, which was also true. And it concluded that it was extremely concerned that Iraq was continuing to act as a conduit for Iranian oil and gas supplies to make their way out into the world’s major export markets. This was true as well, as additionally analysed in my new book on the new global oil market order.

Having said all of this, and despite the presence of several Western firms still in Iraq – notably TotalEnergies and BP – the recent focus of Iraq’s discussions on further exploiting its gas resources has been on Russia, a source who works closely with Iraq’s Oil Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. The main reason for this is not just because it continues to allow Iraq to play the Global North off against the Global South for its own benefit, but also because of the synergies that would become available with Russia’s huge gas (and oil) presence in neighbouring Iran. In the context of Tehran, over four weeks running from the middle of last September, a flurry of high-level meetings between very senior Russia and Iranian figures occurred, including Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, and Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Sergei Shoigu. The focus of these was to ratify key elements of the 20-year deal -- ‘The Treaty on the Basis of Mutual Relations and Principles of Cooperation between Iran and Russia’ – which in several key respects develops key policies of enhanced cooperation laid down in previous agreements between China and Russia on the one side and Iran -- and Iraq -- on the other, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order.

A key part of the energy element of the new Russia-Iran deal that has application in neighbouring Iraq as well is the greater coordination of efforts on exploration, development, production, and marketing of gas (and oil) as delivered through regional pipelines and in LNG form. Russia will continue to split the first right of refusal on all Iran’s key gas (and oil) sites with China according to each country’s broader strategic interests in the region in which each site is located. The same would occur on a formalised basis in Iraq, although it has effectively been taking place in recent years albeit on a more ad hoc level. In fact, China alone currently manages over a third of Iraq’s proven reserves and two-thirds of its production, according to industry figures. A broader motive to increase the day-to-day synergies of Russia’s and China’s operations in Iran to Iraq is to greater coordinate the marketing and sales efforts for gas and oil produced in the two neighbours under the auspices of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). Long-touted as a potential ‘Gas OPEC’, the GECF already controls about 71% of global gas supplies, 44% of its marketed production, 53% of its gas pipelines, and 57% of its LNG exports.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

A New Year and a New Trump Foreign Policy Blunder in Iraq

03.01.2020 - Iraq - Codepink

US Embassy in Iraq under siege (Image by CC)

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies

It’s a new year, and the U.S. has found a new enemy—an Iraqi militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. How tragically predictable was that? So who or what is Kata’ib Hezbollah? Why are U.S. forces attacking it? And where will this lead?

Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) that were recruited to fight the Islamic State after the Iraqi armed forces collapsed and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, fell to IS in June 2014. The first six PMUs were formed by five Shiite militias that all received support from Iran, plus Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraqi nationalist Peace Company, the reincarnation of his anti-occupation Mahdi Army militia, which he had previously disarmed in 2008 under an agreement with the Iraqi government.

Kata’ib Hezbollah was one of those five original Shiite militias and it existed long before the fight against IS. It was a small Shiite group founded before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and was part of the Iraqi Resistance throughout the U.S. occupation. In 2011, it reportedly had 1,000 fighters, who were paid $300 to $500 per month, probably mainly funded by Iran. It fought fiercely until the last U.S. occupation forces were withdrawn in December 2011, and claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that killed 5 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad in June 2011. Since forming a PMU in 2014, its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, has been the overall military commander of the PMUs, reporting directly to the National Security Adviser in the Prime Minister’s office.

In the fight against IS, the PMUs proliferated quickly. Most political parties in Iraq responded to a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani to form and join these units by forming their own. At the peak of the war with IS, the PMUs comprised about 60 brigades with hundreds of thousands of Shia fighters, and even included up to 40,000 Sunni Iraqis.

In the context of the war against the Islamic State, the U.S. and Iran have both provided  a great deal of military support to the PMU and other Iraqi forces, and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga have also received support from Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif in New York in September 2014 to discuss the crisis, and U.S. Ambassador Stuart Jones said in December 2014, “Let’s face it, Iran is an important neighbor to Iraq. There has to be cooperation between Iran and Iraq. The Iranians are talking to the Iraqi security forces and we’re talking to Iraqi security forces… We’re relying on them to do the deconfliction.”

U.S. officials and corporate media are falsely painting Kata’ib Hezbollah and the PMUs as independent, renegade Iranian-backed militias in Iraq but they are really an official part of the Iraq security forces. As a statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office made clear, the U.S. airstrikes were an “American attack on the Iraqi armed forces.”  And these were not just any Iraqi military forces, but forces that have borne the brunt of some of the fiercest fighting against the Islamic State.

Open hostility between U.S. forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah began six months ago, when the U.S. allowed Israel to use U.S. bases in Iraq and/or Syria to launch drone strikes against Kata’ib Hezbollah and other PMU forces in Iraq. There are conflicting reports on exactly where the Israeli drones were launched from, but the U.S. had effective control of Iraqi airspace and was clearly complicit in the drone strikes. This led to a campaign by Shia cleric/politician Muqtada al-Sadr and other anti-occupation parties and politicians in the Iraqi National Assembly to once again call for the expulsion of U.S. forces from Iraq, as they successfully did in 2011, and the U.S. was forced to accept new restrictions on its use of Iraqi airspace.

Then, at the end of October, U.S. bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad came under a new wave of rocket and mortar attacks. While previous attacks were blamed on the Islamic State, the U.S. blamed the new round of attacks on Kata’ib Hezbollah. After a sharp increase in rocket attacks on U.S. bases in December, including one that killed a U.S. military contractor on December 27, the Trump administration launched air strikes on December 29 that killed 25 members of Kata’ib Hezbollah and wounded 55. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi called the strikes a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and declared three national days of mourning for the Iraqi troops that U.S. forces killed.

The U.S. attacks also led to massive protests that besieged the U.S. Embassy and former U.S. occupation headquarters in the Green Zone in Baghdad. U.S. forces at the embassy reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters, leaving 62 militiamen and civilians wounded. After the siege, the Trump administration announced that it would send more troops to the Middle East. Approximately 750 troops are expected to be sent as a result of the embassy attack and another 3,000 could be deployed in the next few days.

The U.S. retaliation was bound to inflame tensions with the Iraqi government and increase popular pressure to close U.S. bases in Iraq. In fact, if Kata’ib Hezbollah is indeed responsible for the rocket and mortar attacks, this is probably exactly the chain of events they intended to provoke. Incensed at the Trump administration’s blatant disregard for Iraqi sovereignty and worried about Iraq being dragged into a U.S. proxy war with Iran that will spiral out of control, a broad swath of Iraqi political leaders are now calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The U.S. military presence in Iraq was reestablished in 2014 as part of the campaign against the Islamic State, but that campaign has wound down substantially since the near destruction and reoccupation of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2017. The number of attacks and terrorist incidents linked to the Islamic State in Iraq has declined steadily since then, from 239 in March 2018 to 51 in November 2019, according to Iraq researcher Joel Wing. Wing’s data makes it clear that IS is a vastly diminished force in Iraq.

The real crisis facing Iraq is not a growing IS but the massive public protests, starting in October, that have exposed the dysfunction of the Iraqi government itself. Months of street protests have forced Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi to submit his resignation–he is now simply acting as a caretaker pending new elections. Severe repression by government forces left over 400 protesters dead, but this has only fuelled even greater public outrage.

These demonstrations are not just directed against individual Iraqi politicians or against Iranian influence in Iraq but against the entire post-2003 political regime established by the U.S. occupation. Protesters blame the government’s  sectarianism, its corruption and the enduring foreign influence of both Iran and the U.S. for the failure to invest Iraq’s oil wealth in rebuilding Iraq and improving the lives of a new generation of young Iraqis.

The recent attack on Kata’ib Hezbollah has actually worked in favor of Iran, turning Iraqi public opinion and Iraqi leaders more solidly against the U.S. military presence. So why has the U.S. jeopardized what influence it still has in Iraq by launching airstrikes against Iraqi forces? And why is the U.S. maintaining a reported 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, at Al-Asad airbase in Anbar province and smaller bases across Iraq? It already has nearly 70,000 troops in other countries in the region, not least 13,000 in neighboring Kuwait, its largest permanent foreign base after Germany, Japan and South Korea.

While the Pentagon continues to insist that the U.S. troop presence is solely to help Iraq fight ISIS, Trump himself has defined its mission as “also to watch over Iran.” He told that to U.S. servicemen in Iraq in a December 2018 Christmas visit and reiterated it in a February 2019 CBS interview. Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has made clear that the U.S. does not have permission to use Iraq as a base from which to confront Iran. Such a mission would be patently illegal under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, drafted with the help of the United States, which forbids using the country’s territory to harm its neighbors.

Under the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, U.S. forces may only remain in Iraq at the “request and invitation” of the Iraqi government. If that invitation is withdrawn, they must leave, as they were forced to do in 2011. The U.S. presence in Iraq is now almost universally unpopular, especially in the wake of U.S. attacks on the very Iraqi armed forces they are supposedly there to support.

Trump’s effort to blame Iran for this crisis is simply a ploy to divert attention from his own bungled policy. In reality, the blame for the present crisis should be placed squarely on the doorstep of the White House itself. The Trump administration’s reckless decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and revert to the U.S. policy of threats and sanctions that never worked before is backfiring as badly as the rest of the world predicted it would, and Trump has only himself to blame for it – and maybe John Bolton.

So will 2020 be the year when Donald Trump is finally forced to fulfill his endless promises to bring U.S. troops home from at least one of its endless wars and military occupations?  Or will Trump’s penchant for doubling down on brutal and counterproductive policies only lead us deeper into his pet quagmire of ever-escalating conflict with Iran, with the U.S.’s beleaguered forces in Iraq as pawns in yet another unwinnable war?

We hope that 2020 will be the year when the American public finally looks at the fateful choice between war and peace with 20/20 vision, and that we will start severely punishing Trump and every other U.S. politician who opts for threats over diplomacy, coercion over cooperation and war over peace.

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=IRAN

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/09/us-war-on-capitalism-in-iran.html